Heliyon (Jun 2024)
Intermodal travel planning and decision support integrated with transportation and energy systems
Abstract
The fast urbanization in China makes it all the more important to find sustainable solutions that are both comprehensive and energy-efficient. Because of its important role in lowering logistical expenses and pollutant emissions, intermodal transport is generally seen as an effective method of coordinating transportation operations, helping to address the growing economic and environmental issues. Considering the characteristics of a growing city, this article lays out a multi-criteria method for selecting which new initiatives for China's public transportation system should be prioritized. “Electric municipality bus,” “light rail system,” and “modernization to the current fleet and optimization” are the three enhancement initiatives that are outlined. Using transportation-related economic, social, and environmental sub-criteria, this research applies TOPSIS, an analytic hierarchy method and fuzzy approach for order preference by resemblance to ideal circumstance application, to prioritize transportation projects. The study aims to improve city life in Chongqing, China, by identifying the most environmentally friendly development projects. Applying the analytical hierarchy method (AHP), the relative importance of several sustainability criteria was established for use in making strategic decisions. The alternative projects for the given city have been ranked using the fuzzy TOPSIS approach. However, the investigated results show the supportive response of hybrid to environmental sustainability and vice versa for non-hybrid vehicles. However, the energy consumption in public transport remains a leading hurdle in sustainability across the three modes of transport: taxis, rail transit and buses. Finally, computer trains in public transport also surprisingly deal with environmental sustainability to keep the current & forthcoming generation from ecological harm. However, theoretical and empirical policy suggestions have been proposed to become clean & green shortly.
