Sustainable Transport Measures: Acceptance Rate in Lahore

Abstract

Sustainability defined as development meeting needs of the present without compromising on the ability of future generations to meet their own needs, has become a wide area of study in Civil Engineering. It has particularly become important in the transportation sector as a result of non-renewable fuel depletion, energy insecurity, traffic congestion, air pollution, global climate change and so many other negative issues. Sustainable transportation aims to tackle all these issues while providing other advantages. Furthermore sustainability is steadily gaining more footholds in the construction industry and is now one of the main expected competencies in a Civil Engineer. This paper focuses on the economical implications of sustainable transport measures. Furthermore it focuses on user rating and acceptance of these measures and how that affects their economical repercussions. In this research, A questionnaire was come up with aim to monitor user acceptance and rating of sustainable transport measures in the city of Lahore. It was found that public transportation has a very high rating and user acceptance whereas car sharing has low user acceptance in Lahore region. The research uses the data on user acceptance and rating to evaluate the economical impacts of sustainable transport measures. From the user acceptance and rating, it can be concluded that congestion charging would have a positive economical impact if it was employed in the area. However it has to be reiterated that the survey only reflected the views and opinions of only a small percentage of the population. Sustainable transport measures have both positive and negative impacts, which are social, economical and environmental. However the positive impacts, as seen in this research outweighs the negative ones especially in terms of economical impacts.