Road Transportation Program: A Proposed Urban Heat Mitigation Strategy in Angeles City, Pampanga

Abstract

Escalating temperatures and the rising heat index have induced implications in urban regions and their occupants. There is a global action to limit the increase of temperature by 1.5° C and in line with this is to cut the gas emission. Thus, this study was conducted entitled “Road Transportation Program: A Proposed Urban Heat Mitigation Strategy in Angeles City, Pampanga”. The researchers aimed to propose a heat reduction strategy through road transportation solutions by assessing the heat perception of road users as well as determining and projecting the amount of carbon dioxide (CO₂) tailpipe emissions from road vehicles in different scenarios. The research design was mixed-method research to obtain qualitative and quantitative data. 100 road users which consist of passengers, drivers, and pedestrians in MacArthur Highway, Angeles City responded to the survey, while engineers from Angeles City Hall and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources were interviewed. The qualitative data were transcribed and analyzed. The researchers utilized the Likert scale, average mean, CO₂ emissions formula, and relative change to treat the quantitative data. Accordingly, results indicated that road users felt warm when taking the highway. Moreover, projecting CO₂ emissions from road vehicles reveals that the shifting of passengers to zero-emission modes of transportation has the highest percentage decrease in emissions with 83.92%, followed by shifting of public transportation with 18.37%. Vehicle volume reduction shows a notably lower impact on reducing emissions. This is the first phase of the program and future researchers could study the viability of implementing the proposal.