ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Future Transp.
Sec. Transportation Emissions
Volume 6 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/ffutr.2025.1604942
This article is part of the Research TopicClimate change and sustainable urban mobility: Low-Emission Zones (LEZ) challenges and experiences for the cities of the futureView all 5 articles
Pathway Analysis of Private Car CO2 Emissions: An Individual Caruse Perspective
Provisionally accepted
- 1The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, SAR China
- 2Institute of Geographic Sciences and Natural Resources Research, Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), Beijing, Beijing Municipality, China
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How to reduce CO2 emissions from private vehicles with low efficiency and excessive growth is a global challenge for big cities. This study conducted a questionnaire survey for private cars in Beijing in 2019 and developed a path analysis model to uncover the influencing mechanisms of vehicle attributes and driver socio-demographics, travel patterns, and driving behaviors on private car CO2 emissions. The results show that fuel consumption per 100 km (FC), engine displacement (Engine), and annual mileage (Mileage_y) have a positive direct effect on CO2 emissions (E). Driver’s characteristics, including age (Age_d), education level (Edu_d), monthly personal income (Income_p), family size (Pop), whether there are elderly people or children in the family (EK), and eco-driving behaviors (Eco) influence E completely indirectly. The total influence in absolute value is, in order, Mileage_y (0.934) > Engine (0.224) > FC (0.185) > Pop (0.078) > EK (0.032) > Income_p (0.018) > Eco (-0.010) > Edu_d (0.002) > Age_d (-0.001). Higher income and education levels are associated with higher emissions, warranting targeted policy interventions for carbon mitigation.
Keywords: carbon emissions, Private vehicle, Influencing mechanism, Path analysis, Individual perspective
Received: 07 May 2025; Accepted: 11 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Zheng. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Ji Zheng, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam, Hong Kong, SAR China
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