IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/urbpla/v3y2018i2p82-93.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Beijing’s Peak Car Transition: Hope for Emerging Cities in the 1.5 °C Agenda

Author

Listed:
  • Yuan Gao

    (Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute (CUSP), Australia)

  • Peter Newman

    (Curtin University Sustainability Policy Institute (CUSP), Australia)

Abstract

Peak car has happened in most developed cities, but for the 1.5 °C agenda the world also needs emerging cities to go through this transition. Data on Beijing shows that it has reached peak car over the past decade. Evidence is provided for peak car in Beijing from traffic supply (freeway length per capita and parking bays per private car) and traffic demand (private car ownership, automobile modal split, and Vehicle Kilometres Travelled per capita). Most importantly the data show Beijing has reduced car use absolutely whilst its GDP has continued to grow. Significant growth in electric vehicles and bikes is also happening. Beijing’s transition is explained in terms of changing government policies and emerging cultural trends, with a focus on urban fabrics theory. The implications for other emerging cities are developed out of this case study. Beijing’s on-going issues with the car and oil will remain a challenge but the first important transition is well underway.

Suggested Citation

  • Yuan Gao & Peter Newman, 2018. "Beijing’s Peak Car Transition: Hope for Emerging Cities in the 1.5 °C Agenda," Urban Planning, Cogitatio Press, vol. 3(2), pages 82-93.
    • Handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v:3:y:2018:i:2:p:82-93
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/urbanplanning/article/view/1246
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Adam Millard‐Ball & Lee Schipper, 2011. "Are We Reaching Peak Travel? Trends in Passenger Transport in Eight Industrialized Countries," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(3), pages 357-378.
    2. Reid Ewing & Robert Cervero, 2010. "Travel and the Built Environment," Journal of the American Planning Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 76(3), pages 265-294.
    3. Peter Headicar, 2013. "The Changing Spatial Distribution of the Population in England: Its Nature and Significance for 'Peak Car'," Transport Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(3), pages 310-324, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Masanobu Kii & Varameth Vichiensan & Carlos Llorca & Ana Moreno & Rolf Moeckel & Yoshitsugu Hayashi, 2021. "Impact of Decentralization and Rail Network Extension on Future Traffic in the Bangkok Metropolitan Region," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-24, November.
    2. Sharma, Rohit & Newman, Peter, 2018. "Does urban rail increase land value in emerging cities? Value uplift from Bangalore Metro," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 70-86.
    3. Giles Thomson & Peter Newman, 2020. "Cities and the Anthropocene: Urban governance for the new era of regenerative cities," Urban Studies, Urban Studies Journal Limited, vol. 57(7), pages 1502-1519, May.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Ding, Chuan & Wang, Donggen & Liu, Chao & Zhang, Yi & Yang, Jiawen, 2017. "Exploring the influence of built environment on travel mode choice considering the mediating effects of car ownership and travel distance," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 65-80.
    2. Bastian, Anne & Börjesson, Maria, 2014. "It's the economy, stupid: increasing fuel price is enough to explain Peak Car in Sweden," Working papers in Transport Economics 2014:15, CTS - Centre for Transport Studies Stockholm (KTH and VTI).
    3. Michael Iacono & David Levinson, 2015. "Cohort Effects and Their Influence on Car Ownership," Working Papers 000138, University of Minnesota: Nexus Research Group.
    4. Holz-Rau, Christian & Scheiner, Joachim, 2020. "Raum und Verkehr - ein Feld komplexer Wirkungsbeziehungen: Können Interventionen in die gebaute Umwelt klimawirksame Verkehrsemissionen wirklich senken?," Forschungsberichte der ARL: Aufsätze, in: Reutter, Ulrike & Holz-Rau, Christian & Albrecht, Janna & Hülz, Martina (ed.), Wechselwirkungen von Mobilität und Raumentwicklung im Kontext gesellschaftlichen Wandels, volume 14, pages 76-101, ARL – Akademie für Raumentwicklung in der Leibniz-Gemeinschaft.
    5. Nielsen, Thomas Alexander Sick, 2015. "Changes in transport behavior during the financial crisis. An analysis of urban form, location and transport behavior in the greater Copenhagen area 2006–2011," Research in Transportation Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(C), pages 10-19.
    6. Kay, Andrew I. & Noland, Robert B. & Rodier, Caroline J., 2014. "Achieving reductions in greenhouse gases in the US road transportation sector," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 536-545.
    7. Kent, Jennifer L., 2014. "Driving to save time or saving time to drive? The enduring appeal of the private car," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 65(C), pages 103-115.
    8. Melia, Steve & Chatterjee, Kiron & Stokes, Gordon, 2018. "Is the urbanisation of young adults reducing their driving?," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 444-456.
    9. Figueroa, Maria J. & Nielsen, Thomas A. Sick & Siren, Anu, 2014. "Comparing urban form correlations of the travel patterns of older and younger adults," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 35(C), pages 10-20.
    10. Meng Zhou & Donggen Wang, 2019. "Investigating inter-generational changes in activity-travel behavior: a disaggregate approach," Transportation, Springer, vol. 46(5), pages 1643-1687, October.
    11. Vij, Akshay & Gorripaty, Sreeta & Walker, Joan L., 2017. "From trend spotting to trend ’splaining: Understanding modal preference shifts in the San Francisco Bay Area," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 95(C), pages 238-258.
    12. Bastian, Anne & Börjesson, Maria, 2015. "Peak car? Drivers of the recent decline in Swedish car use," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 94-102.
    13. Holz-Rau, Christian & Scheiner, Joachim, 2019. "Land-use and transport planning – A field of complex cause-impact relationships. Thoughts on transport growth, greenhouse gas emissions and the built environment," Transport Policy, Elsevier, vol. 74(C), pages 127-137.
    14. Anne Aguiléra & Jean Grébert, 2014. "Passenger transport mode share in cities: exploration of actual and future trends with a worldwide survey," International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, Inderscience Enterprises Ltd, vol. 14(3/4), pages 203-216.
    15. Circella, Giovanni & Tiedeman, Kate & Handy, Susan & Alemi, Farzad & Mokhtarian, Patricia, 2016. "What Affects U.S. Passenger Travel? Current Trends and Future Perspectives," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt2w16b8bf, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    16. Mehzabin Tuli, Farzana & Mitra, Suman & Crews, Mariah B., 2021. "Factors influencing the usage of shared E-scooters in Chicago," Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, Elsevier, vol. 154(C), pages 164-185.
    17. Lovejoy, Kristin, 2012. "Mobility Fulfillment Among Low-car Households: Implications for Reducing Auto Dependence in the United States," Institute of Transportation Studies, Working Paper Series qt4v44b5qn, Institute of Transportation Studies, UC Davis.
    18. John Stanley & Janet Stanley, 2023. "Improving Appraisal Methodology for Land Use Transport Measures to Reduce Risk of Social Exclusion," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(15), pages 1-18, August.
    19. Marie Geraldine Herrmann-Lunecke & Cristhian Figueroa-Martínez & Francisca Parra Huerta & Rodrigo Mora, 2022. "The Disabling City: Older Persons Walking in Central Neighbourhoods of Santiago de Chile," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-19, September.
    20. Li, Jingjing & Kim, Changjoo & Sang, Sunhee, 2018. "Exploring impacts of land use characteristics in residential neighborhood and activity space on non-work travel behaviors," Journal of Transport Geography, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 141-147.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:urbpla:v:3:y:2018:i:2:p:82-93. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.