Travel emission profile of Iskandar Malaysia neighbourhoods from pre-1980s to 2000s

Abstract

Vehicle Miles Travelled (VMT), an indicator of travel levels on the roadway system mainly by private vehicles, has been widely used in urban planning to help indicate CO2 emission due to changes in built environment. Bordering Singapore to the south, neighbourhood development has been constantly happening in Johor Bahru since 1980's. These neighbourhood developments are believed to have undergone a continuous layout design evolution affecting its land use distribution, road network design, and density. Thus, this paper investigates the quiet influence of neighbourhood design, as it evolves over the decades on VMT and eventually travel carbon emission. Twenty two residential neighbourhoods representing several decades from pre-1980s to the 2010s were selected and travel diaries of their randomly selected households were recorded. Findings from this study reveal that travel carbon emission for pre-1980s residential areas is only 8.7 kilograms/household/day with a daily travel range of 40 km/day. However, the amount increases up to 21.8 kilograms/household/day for 2010s houses with daily travel range of 100 km/day. Car usage among residents in Iskandar Malaysia is undoubtly increasing as car ownership proportion increases from 0.8 in pre-1980s to 2.37 in 2010s. Number and distance of vehicles trip can be reduced by organizing activities in compact communities rather than in auto dependent suburbs. In addition, a carbon emission reduction of up to 10 percent may result from a change in land use approach alone while additional reductions will result from employing other strategies such as transit investment, fuel pricing, and parking charges.