Research article Sustainability assessment for the transportation environment of Darjeeling, India Dipanjan Nag a, * , Subrata Kr. Paul b , Swati Saha b , Arkopal K. Goswami a a Ranbir & Chitra Gupta School of Infrastructure Design & Management, Indian Institute of Technology, Kharagpur, Kharagpur, West Bengal, 721302, India b Department of Architecture, Town & Regional Planning, Indian Institute of Engineering Science & Technology, Shibpur, PO- Botanic Garden, Howrah, West Bengal, 711103, India article info Article history: Received 12 May 2017 Received in revised form 4 January 2018 Accepted 14 January 2018 Available online xxx Keywords: Sustainability Sustainability indicators Analytical Hierarchy Process Darjeeling Tourist hill town Policy intervention abstract Darjeeling is an important tourist hill town of West Bengal, India. It suffers from an acute problem of transportation, particularly during its peak tourist seasons due to limited road space, inadequate public transport facilities and indiscriminate use of automobiles. This hill town was originally designed for a population of 10,000, but over the years, it has come face-to-face with rapid urbanization, a rising population of both tourists and residents and intensifying motor vehicle usage. These factors together are posing a threat to its transport environment. This study identifies the Sustainable Transport Indicators (STIs) available in the existing literature to identify the critical stretches using Analytical Hierarchy Process (AHP) based on experts' consensus. It was found that the experts placed emphasis on the mobility of the town, talking about vehicular impact on air pollution and encroachment of roads as the main issues affecting the sustainability of the transport environment. Thereafter, policy-level in- terventions have been suggested in accordance with the identified sustainability issues. We trust that other tourist hill towns with issues similar to Darjeeling could easily emulate the study methodology to assess their transport environment sustainability, or replicate on the lines of the recommended policy interventions. © 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Darjeeling, a small hill town in West Bengal, India, is a major destination for domestic and international tourists. In 2014, around 0.65 million domestic and international tourists visited Darjeeling (Gorkha Territorial Administration, 2015). The view of the mighty Kanchenjunga, Tiger Hill and just the scenic beauty of the town are the factors that draw in the tourists every year. However, the pristine nature of Darjeeling has changed over the years d and is now not what it used to be. As time progressed, tourism grew along with migration of people from surrounding areas. Darjeeling consequently morphed into an urban center. Its urban core is characterized by congestion of major streets, pollu- tion, overcrowding and other infrastructural problems, such as inadequate supply of water, sewage and sanitation issues. All these factors lead to an adverse situation and threaten the sustainability of this tourist hill town. The use of automobiles in the hill town is greatly dictated by the movement of both the tourists as well as residents. Hence, pressure on the transport infrastructure is evident from both quarters. Tourism and tea cultivation are two major contributors of economy for Darjeeling (Bhutia, 2014). However, congestion and problems related with transport infrastructure will eventually create a negative impact on tourism, and thus, not desirable. It has been observed from tourist perception surveys that visi- tors find Darjeeling to be overcrowded, congested and unpleasant, particularly due to incessant traffic jams in the heart of the town (Bhattacharya, 1992). Since Darjeeling is a tourist town with economy directly linked with tourism, the transportation envi- ronment must be a sustainable one that can cater to both the res- idents and the tourists. Also, Darjeeling is a geographically constrained urban area with very limited scope for provision of new infrastructure. Thus, “lower-cost and smaller-scale interventions in the realm of infra- structure provision” would go some way in promoting a more sustainable form of development (Mell and Sturzaker, 2014). Thus, policy-level interventions to subvert the ongoing unsustainable practices in Darjeeling could be the key to its development as a * Corresponding author. E-mail address: el.diablo.diablo78@gmail.com (D. Nag). Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Environmental Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.01.042 0301-4797/© 2018 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Journal of Environmental Management xxx (2018) 1e14 Please cite this article in press as: Nag, D., et al., Sustainability assessment for the transportation environment of Darjeeling, India, Journal of Environmental Management (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.01.042