Assessing sustainability of mixed use neighbourhoods through residents' travel behaviour and perception: The case of Nagpur, India

Abstract

Mixed land-use development is the integration of different land-use functions like residential, commercial, recreational, and institutional in an urban sector or a neighbourhood. Integrating transport and land-use mix is one of the goals of planning policies around the world. Prior studies mention the benefits of mixed land-use development towards creating sustainable environment, but do not specify the proportion of the mix of compatible land uses. This study attempts to assess the sustainability of the neighbourhoods with mixed land-use in the context of the Nagpur city, India. Residents' travel behaviour in twelve neighbourhoods is studied by means of indicators namely trip lengths, mode of travel, vehicle ownership, and travel expenses. To investigate the users' insight, the study further examines residents' perception with the help of parameters such as safety, satisfaction, pollution, and mix. The sustainability indices are computed for both residents' travel behaviour and perception, for each neighbourhood. The study revealed that neighbourhoods with high and moderate land-use mix are sustainable with travel behaviour. Residents' perception sustainability index indicates neighbourhoods with moderate land-use mix are more sustainable than those with high and low land-use mixed neighbourhoods. This study advocates stakeholders' insight and the proportion of mix in land-use planning decisions.