Abstract

As the transport sector is a major source of greenhouse gas emissions, the effect of urbanization on transport CO2 emissions in developing cities has become a key issue under global climate change. Examining the case of Xi'an, this paper aims to explore the spatial distribution of commuting CO2 emissions and influencing factors in the new, urban industry zones and city centers considering Xi'ans transition from a monocentric to a polycentric city in the process of urbanization. Based on household survey data from 1501 respondents, there are obvious differences in commuting CO2 emissions between new industry zones and city centers: City centers feature lower household emissions of 2.86 kg CO2 per week, whereas new industry zones generally have higher household emissions of 3.20 kg CO2 per week. Contrary to previous research results, not all new industry zones have high levels of CO2 emissions, with the rapid development of various types of industries, even a minimum level of household emissions of 2.53 kg CO2 per week is possible. The uneven distribution of commuting CO2 emissions is not uniformly affected by spatial parameters such as job–housing balance, residential density, employment density, and land use diversity. Optimum combination of the spatial parameters and travel pattern along with corresponding transport infrastructure construction may be an appropriate path to reduction and control of emissions from commuting.

Abstract

Increased bicycling is of great importance for a sustainable transport system. This report is the result of a literature study concerning how different factors associated with bicycle planning influence the propensity to choose the bicycle for transportation. The literature study was carried out in the search engine GoogleScholar and only scientific papers, articles and books were included. Through this literature review, knowledge has been gathered concerning bicycleplanning, policies and other factors that influence the use of the bicycle in daily transport. Through the literature study it became evident that the attractiveness of the bicycle should be seen in relation to the car. If it is more attractive to use motorised modes of transport (e.g. through parking norms, costs, level of service) it will be hard to convince people to use the bike instead of the car. It also became clear that there are big differences in how research concerningbicycling and bicycle planning is conducted and there is e.g. no research based on before- and after studies. Despite this, the results are often very consistent. For instance, the results show that the bicycle infrastructure is of great importance. This implies that if appropriate infrastructure is build people tend to use the bicycle more often. In terms of policy, the time factor seems to be an important issue. This in turn implies, with policies and strategies being consistent over longer time intervals, the impact on the use of the bicycle increases.