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University of Oxford
School of Geography and the Environment

 School of Geography and the Environment

IGS: Current and Recent Graduate Research

Sharad Saxena

Urban transport investment decisions: balancing efficiency, environment and equity

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Academic Profile

Sharad holds a BTech in Mechanical Engineering and an MBA degree. Most recently he completed an MSc in Environmental Change and Management at the University of Oxford. Prior to commencing his doctoral research he worked for 10 years with the Ministry of Railways, Government of India, as a technical consultant.

Current Research

The process of rapid urbanization and increasing levels of motorized vehicular stock in urban India are creating severe problems of traffic congestion, air pollution and traffic accidents. It is also likely to become a major contributor to global problem of climate change unless some mitigation strategies are adopted. Major investments in highways, expansion of the road network and flyovers are being planned and executed to overcome these problems. Much like the experience of the developed world, the traffic has merely grown to take up the enhanced road space. Investments in high capacity rail based mass transit systems, being undertaken by a few India cities suffer from cost overruns and under utilization of capacity.

Transport project selection is an important planning activity for the Government, especially in a developing country context. For the process to be equitable, the investment decisions must meet the demands of the affluent using motorized vehicles as well as cater to the mobility needs of the poor who are dependent on non-motorized vehicles and walking. In a developing country like India, even a subsidized motorized public transport system may prove too expensive for a significant proportion of the population. Moreover investments which promote motorization may impose disproportionate social and environmental costs on the poor.

Sharad's doctoral research draws upon new approaches to transport planning decision making. It looks at project evaluation methods - an area where a radical rethink has taken place partly as a result of concern over existing economic based approaches and partly as a result of the growing importance of externalities principally the environment. In the first phase it analyses the methodology and arguments used to justify past transport investments and compares the estimated impacts with the actual outcomes. Based on the literature on decision theory and evaluation techniques like multi-criteria decision analysis, it then develops a framework which can be used to appraise and rank transport investment options in India by combining and weighting the various elements under the broad criteria of efficiency, environment and equity. This multi-criteria decision analysis based tool is then used to assess and evaluate transport infrastructure projects in Indian cities.