A system dynamics model of CO2 mitigation in China’s inter-city passenger transport

Mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions from transportation has become increasingly important and challenging especially for developing countries. This paper takes the inter-city passenger transport in China as a case, and develops a system dynamics model for policy assessment and CO₂ mitigation potential analysis. It is found that the future demand for China’s inter-city passenger transport is expected to be large, with the turnover volume growing at a rate of 9% per annum and amounting to 6600 billion p-km in 2020. Major emissions reduction potential exists in inter-city passenger transport. In 2020, comparing to the case without any specific policies stressing mitigation, the reduction of CO₂ emissions ranges from 26% to 32% under those scenarios with policy controls. Sensitivity analysis reveals that the CO₂ mitigation will be best achieved by accelerating the development of railway network, together with slowing down the extension of highway network and imposing fuel taxes.