Future reductions of China’s transport emissions impacted by changing driving behaviour

This paper examines what individual drivers can contribute to reduce global vehicle emissions in their daily driving. Here we analyse vehicle emissions from the behavioural perspective with the aim of identifying ways in which drivers can reduce emissions by modifying their driving behaviour. We propose an indicator, the Standardized Driver Aggressiveness Index, to estimate the changes in private vehicle driving behaviour and perform estimates based on the real-world vehicular trajectory data collected from 2013 to 2021 in China. We then develop a forward-looking integrated assessment model to predict the extra vehicle emissions that would be induced by various types of car-following behaviour, for example, calm, neutral and aggressive behaviour. Our results indicate that by 2050, the cumulative emissions linked to driving behaviour that could be prevented will amount to 400.5 million tons of CO2. Our findings highlight the importance of considering behavioural changes as part of the solution to mitigate transport emissions, and underline the urgent need for interventions that can lead drivers to adopting more sustainable driving behaviour.