Thursday, March 11, 3:30 PM. Pierce Hall 100F, 29 Oxford St., Cambridge

ABSTRACT

The rising prevalence of private cars in the developing world is causing serious congestion and pollution. In China, private cars started to emerge as an important travel mode in the last decade. Prospective research on the relationship between urban form and car ownership is relatively uncommon in the developing world, and China offers a unique study given the tremendous increases in private cars and fast urbanization pace in the last decade. The research seeks to investigate the influence of urban form on car ownership as well as other socioeconomic and demographic factors impact on private car ownership across mega-cities in China. Analysis is conducted using data from 36 mega-cities and two household survey datasets collected in Beijing and Chengdu. Ordinary Least Squares regression and discrete choice models are employed to execute the aggregate and disaggregate analysis of the urban form impact on private car ownership across cities. The statistical model results demonstrate that urban affluence, urban scale and road infrastructure supply factors have significant positive effects on the city level of private car ownership across cities; while population density calculated at the sub-district level has a significant negative effect on private car ownership across cities. It is also interesting to find that households with private cars prefer to live close to the urban centers where good urban amenities are provided. The results provide evidence for urban planners and policy makers.

Note: This study, co-authored by Joan L. Walker, Sumeeta Srinivasan, and William P. Anderson, is based in part on data from the China Project's multidisciplinary household survey in Chengdu. It was presented at the 2010 annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, and is in press in Transportation Research Record.