Environmental sustainability assessment of gasoline transportation in Tehran based on per capita carbon footprint and future scenario analysis

Air pollution and carbon dioxide emissions, as major and destructive impacts of urban transportation, have directly contributed to global warming. Since air pollution resulting from the uncontrolled expansion of gasoline-based transportation is a significant issue in Tehran, assessing environmental sustainability through carbon footprint calculation is essential. Accordingly, this applied research adopts a mixed-method approach to evaluate the environmental sustainability of gasoline transportation in Tehran using the per capita carbon footprint index and to analyze future scenarios over the next 15 years. Initially, data on gasoline consumption in Tehran’s urban transportation sector were collected using the library research method. Based on this data, the per capita carbon footprint from gasoline consumption was calculated to be 5.58 m2 per person. Comparative analysis revealed that this figure is 12 times higher than the global standard and thus environmentally unsustainable. The study then identified key driving forces and analyzed scenarios using ScenarioWizard software. The catastrophic scenario projected that if the current trend continues until 2041 (1420 in the Iranian calendar), the per capita carbon footprint will increase by over 66%, reaching 11.52 m2 more than 23 times the global standard. In contrast, the ideal scenario indicated that implementing appropriate policies could reduce the per capita ecological footprint to 0.25 m2 (half the global standard) by 2041. This study is limited to the assessment of the per capita carbon footprint of gasoline transportation in Tehran and, in this regard, can serve as a model for future research addressing other environmental pollutants, transportation patterns, and urban areas.