Empirical study on the impact of China's metro services on urban transportation energy consumption

Mingchao Yu, Ran Yu, Yuxuan Tang and Zhen Liu

Research in Transportation Economics, 2020, vol. 80, issue C

Abstract: The development of metro systems has shortened the travel distances and density within cities, and promoted the transformation of urban transportation, which has had an impact on traffic energy consumption. Based on data from 81 cities in mainland China with a permanent population of more than one million from 2003 to 2016, this paper uses the difference in differences (DID) method to study the impact of urban metro systems on transportation energy consumption in China. The results show that after the opening of the city subway, per capita traffic energy consumption decreased, indicating that subways reduce energy consumption in urban areas; there exists a “U” relationship between metro operation intensity and per capita traffic energy consumption. The average level is far from the inflection point value, which indicates that an increase in metro operation intensity has the effect of improving traffic energy consumption. However, the marginal benefit of reducing urban traffic energy consumption is gradually decreasing. Further research has found that the metro system can reduce the distance travelled by cars by replacing the use of traditional automobile transportation, thus reducing transportation energy consumption.

Keywords: Metro services; Urban traffic energy consumption; Continuous DID model; China (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q40 R40 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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DOI: 10.1016/j.retrec.2020.100821

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