Internalizing the externalities of urban private transport – A case of Gurugram, national capital Region, India

The negative externalities associated with road traffic pose a key challenge to sustainable transportation. With the increase in personalized travel in most cities, there has been an increase in traffic density, resulting in longer travel times, lower average speeds, higher levels of fuel consumption, air and noise pollution, and discomfort for road users. This has put a lot of pressure on policymakers to devise ways for tackling this problem. This problem can be addressed by imposing such external costs on urban private transport users through various types of taxes, surcharges and levies. The present paper makes an attempt to estimate the external costs of urban private transport and explore to what extent urban private transport users shall be either willing to shift to different modes of public transit in the event of internalization of external costs or shall be willing to pay for the external costs. The objective analysis carried out in this paper in the city of Gurugram in the nation capital region of India is expected to establish the negative externalities of urban private transport and highlight the possible migration to public transit in the event of internalizing the external costs of private transport.