Transit Policies and Potential Carbon Dioxide Emission Impacts

Promoting transit has been a national strategic policy as part of the effort to relieve traffic congestion in China. However, such promotion also offers a great potential benefit in carbon dioxide (CO₂) abatement, to which insufficient attention has been paid. For the effects of transit priority policies on CO₂ emissions to be understood, an evaluation and a sensitivity analysis were conducted. The relationship between public transit and CO₂ emissions with respect to four contributing factors is discussed. The effectiveness of transit priority policies implemented in recent years was analyzed, and its correlation to CO₂ emissions was identified. The magnitude of transit CO₂ emissions from 2000 to 2008 was estimated. On the basis of varied assumptions, six scenarios were designed to analyze the sensitivity and the range of possible CO₂ abatement potentials of different policies. Finally, some recommendations for future policies from the perspective of reducing CO₂ are presented.