Behaviourally-Informed Urban Mobility Interventions for Congestion Management in Dehradun, India

Abstract

Dehradun, a fast-urbanising hill city, is witnessing critical levels of vehicular traffic congestion, particularly during peak school and office hours. This report presents a strategically layered, behaviourally informed urban mobility plan to reduce congestion sustainably. Drawing on globally validated behavioural models (Behavioural Urbanism, COM-B, EAST), criminological frameworks (CPTED, SCP, Defensible Space), and national-international precedents, this proposal leverages a hybrid of digital nudges, infrastructural adaptation, and social norm activation to drive sustainable modal transition. Peak hour congestion is attempted to be solved from a Geographical perspective with the help of Transport Science, large scale network maps tying up with the previously mentioned Behaviour Science principles. Case studies of congestion hotspots are analysed with ground level solutions often involving changes in appearance of infrastructure and its presentation rather than changes in infrastructure capacity. These solutions aim to be affordable, easy to implement and bring drastic change in how transportation is viewed in the hill city. Hotspot analysis is followed by a cost feasibility assessment, list of potential funding sources, implementation risk analysis and implementation roadmap. Lastly, areas for future research are specified.