Urban Mobility Associated Ambient Air Quality and Policies for Environmental Implications

The transport sector emerged as one of the largest contributors to atmospheric warming. In India, the transport sector consumes ~17% of total energy and produces about 60% of total greenhouse gases (GHG) during various activities. Particularly in Delhi, the rising ambient concentrations of particulate matter (PM) lead to thousands of premature deaths and several million asthma attacks every year. The outdoor exposure of high PM2.5 concentration in Delhi causes lung impairment to human beings. Several policy measures have been implemented from time to time by the Indian Government to control vehicular pollution, such as unleaded fuel implement in 1996 (0.15 g/l) and further reduction of lead (0.25%) and sulfur (0.5%) in fuel in 1998 and 1996, respectively. Besides the improvement of fuel quality, scrapping of 8-year-old buses and all other vehicles which were forced to meet Euro-1 norms except passenger cars was implemented in 2000. However, to reduce PM load in Delhi, the Indian Government implemented several policies like the Green Tribunal Act 2015; as per this act, 10-year-old diesel vehicles were banned in Delhi. The deployment of BS-VI vehicle and electric vehicles in the country is also proposed by the government up to 2020. These policies indicate the severity of transport sector emission and its adverse impacts on the environment and health. Hence, the chapter is focused on the roadway transport adverse effects and possible mitigation measures.