Effectiveness assessment of government promotional policy framework towards climate-neutral mobility in Indian context

Abstract

The utilization of electric vehicles as a general transport medium is considered one of the most viable mitigation strategies for continuously increasing fossil fuel-based energy demands and corresponding GHG emission issues. However, such sustainable transitions need to be supported by an effective promotion policy framework to shift the interests of the potential stakeholders toward electric vehicle (EV) alternatives. This work presents the effectiveness assessment of several government EV promotional policies in India based on the multiple criteria decision-making (MCDM) strategies by considering the general societal outlooks. The analytic hierarchy process (AHP) scheme is adopted for prioritization followed by the qualitative evaluations of the adopted methodology. From the work, the charging infrastructure development support is identified as the most effective policy measure to improve the EV market diffusion in India. Moreover, some suggestive measures are also presented as the contribution towards the attainment of several sustainable development targets, such as the disincentivization of conventional vehicles, accelerating the pace of effective battery charging/swapping infrastructure facilities, and promoting the utilization of energy-mix technologies, etc.