Urban Transportation and the Environment: Issues, Alternatives and Policy Analysis

The book deals with urban transportation planning in light of environmental sustainability and social equity. It begins with a review of the Indian urban transportation system and the issues surrounding it, and discusses the alternatives and policy directions that are being considered. It examines all the environmental issues arising out of transportation as a sector and assesses the alternatives that can be considered to improve sustainability. Further, the book not only analyses transportation modes that cater to the travel needs of the poor, so as to make them more socially equitable, but also explores measures to promote them using a multi-criteria and multi-stakeholder approach. It addresses the barriers that are bottlenecks for the implementation of cleaner fuels and modes of transport and presents an incremental approach to tackle environmental concerns, including climate change, when planning transportation in the long term. Finally, it presents the dilemma of city administrators in choosing between strategies aimed at local pollution control and those aimed at limiting global emissions. This unique book provides a comprehensive overview of “sustainable transportation.” It discusses all the important elements that are essential to transportation planners and policy makers when planning a city’s transportation. Theoretical presentations augmented by case-specific research work and the methodology used in some of the modules, make it a valuable resource for researchers working at the forefront of this area.

Sudhakar Yedla is a professor of Environmental Policy at Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research (IGIDR), Mumbai, India. He is also a member of Court (Board), Central University of Jharkhand and guest faculty at Indian Institute of Forest Management (IIFM), Bhopal. He has a PhD in Environmental Engineering from the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur, India. He has a Diploma in International Environmental Law from UN Institute for Training and Research (UNITAR), Switzerland and Certification in Environmental Economics and Development Policy from the World Bank Institute, Washington, D. C., USA. His area of expertise includes Urban Environmental Policy, Climate Change Mitigation and Sustainable Mobility. Earlier he was a faculty member at the University of Ulsan, South Korea; Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand; and National Institute of Technology (NIT), Warangal. He had served the Institute of Global Environmental Strategies (IGES), Japan as a Policy Researcher and National Institute of Environmental Studies (NIES), Japan as a Fellow. He had also served UNDP as GEF and SDG consultant, UNESCAP as Sustainable City consultant, UNEP, UN-FAO and Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) as a Project Director for their regional initiatives on Roles of Agriculture, Climate Change and Transportation. Prof. Yedla was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Korean Institute of International Economic Policy (KIEP), Seoul, South Korea. He has published extensively (over 100) in international journals and authored books and serving editorial boards of a number of international journals. He has been invited extensively by national and international organizations and universities to give lectures. He is a member of a large number of academic societies and won more than 10 prestigious fellowships internationally. He has also been serving various corporate giants such as Cisco as a CSR reviewer.