Co-Benefit Assessment of Active Transportation in Delhi, Estimating the Willingness to Use Nonmotorized Mode and Near-Roadway-Avoided PM_2.5 Exposure

This study aims to estimate the avoided mortalities and morbidities and related economic impacts due to adopting the nonmotorized transportation (NMT) policy in Delhi, India. To this aim, an integrated quantitative assessment framework is developed to estimate the expected environmental, health, and economic co-benefits from replacing personal motorized transport with NMT in Delhi, taking into account the inhabitants’ willingness to use NMT (walking and cycling) mode. The willingness to accept NMT is estimated by conducting a cross-sectional survey in Delhi, which is further used to estimate the expected health benefits from both increased physical activity and near-roadway-avoided PM_2.5 exposure in selected traffic areas in 11 major districts in Delhi. The value of a statistical life (VSL) and cost of illness methods are used to calculate the economic benefits of the avoided mortalities and morbidities from NMT in Delhi. The willingness assessment indicates that the average per capita time spent walking and cycling in Delhi is 11.054 and 2.255 min, respectively. The results from the application of the NMT in Delhi show the annual reduction in CO₂ and PM_2.5 to be 121.5 kilotons and 138.9 tons, respectively. The model estimates the expected co-benefits from increased physical activities and reduced PM_2.5 exposure at 17,529 avoided cases of mortality with an associated savings of about USD 4870 million in Delhi.