Energy efficiency in urban landuse and transport planning for home-based daily trips, A case study of Kathmandu Valley
Date
2020
Authors
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Institute of Engineering, Architecture
Abstract
Escalating transport energy demand is one of the major issues for the Kathmandu Valley, with a rapid
increase in mobilization and urban sprawl. The Kathmandu Valley is the center for economic activities
and educational opportunities where the daily trips that constitute work trips and educational trips have
a dominant share. In this context, this research is aimed to study travel behavior, urban landuse and
transport system in relation to transport energy demand for home-based daily trips, in the context of the
Kathmandu Valley.
Trip data of workers and students were collected from the household survey, carried out in different
parts of the study area, using random sampling. Daily trips have a significant share in travel demand
with about 2.1 million trips per day with modal share of private vehicles showing higher, as compared
to other modes. Mode choice and trip length were studied in relation to the socio-economic and
demographic background and it was found that the role of gender, age and income and household
vehicle ownership were found to be influential to the travel behavior, more importantly for work trips.
Travel behavior was studied in relation to urban form for the travel energy assessment. Work trips are
observed to vary more spatially, than educational trips. The correlation analyses of work trips show that
population density and public transport accessibility, are having little impact on travel energy, whereas
increasing distance from the central business district is found to have a significant rise in travel energy.
Four-Step Urban Transport Model, was developed to study the travel pattern in macro scale and for
carrying out scenario analysis. The currently daily trips consume 3666 TJ annually. Cars and
motorcycles contribute to most of consumption, accounting for over 80% of total transport energy.
Current willingness to shift to Public Transport like Bus Rapid Transit System, leads to the reduction
in transport energy up to 44% for trips along the zones with access to the service. With the balance
between Trip Production and Attraction, whereby Employment and Educational Services are provided
in accordance to travel demand of work and education trips, respectively, the reduction is achieved by
6%. The reduction is further increased significantly by shift from motorized private more to nonmotorized
modes
of
transport.
The
research
exemplifies
the
benefits
of
using
travel
behavior
analysis
and
transport
modelling
for
studying
daily
trips
in
macro
scale,
to
promote
energy
efficiency
in
landuse
and
transport
planning,
in
context
of
the
Kathmandu
Valley.
Description
Keywords
Urban landuse, Transport planning, Energy efficiency, Economic opportunities