Congestion and pollution consequences of driving-to-school trips: A case study in Beijing |
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| Institution: | 1. Department of Economics, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiaotong University and Fudan University, Shanghai, China;2. Institute of Finance & Economics Research, School of Urban and Regional Science, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, Shanghai, China;3. Hang Lung Center for Real Estate Tsinghua University, Beijing, China;4. Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States;1. Key Laboratory for NSLSCS of Jiangsu Province, School of Mathematical Sciences, Nanjing Normal University, Nanjing 210023, PR China;2. School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue, Singapore 639798, Singapore;1. School of Health and Human Performance, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada;2. Department of Geography and Planning, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada;3. Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, 55 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON, Canada M5S 2W6;4. Department of Geography, University of Toronto Mississauga, Mississauga, Toronto, ON, Canada;5. Faculty of Kinesiology and Physical Education, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada;6. Metrolinx, Toronto, ON, Canada;1. EPIGET - Epidemiology, Epigenetics, and Toxicology Lab, Department of Clinical Sciences and Community Health, Università degli Studi di Milano, Italy;2. Flemish Institute for Technological Research (VITO), Mol, Belgium;3. Hasselt University, Hasselt, Belgium;4. Fondazione IRCCS Ca’ Granda Ospedale Maggiore Policlinico, U.O.S Tossicologia, Milan, Italy;1. Tsinghua University, Department of Construction Management, Beijing 100084, China;2. UCLA, 3250 Public Policy Building, Box 951656 Los Angeles, CA 90095-1656, USA |
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| Abstract: | Parents compete for high-quality education for their children by enrolling them in good schools. However, in a Chinese mega-city like Beijing, three factors jointly lead to the spatial separation between schools and homes: the centralized public goods provision mechanism, the historical dependency in school location, and the constrained supply of housing in downtown. Without an adequate number of school buses, this spatial separation of schools and homes triggers the numerous long-distance driving-to-school trips by private vehicle during workday morning rush hours in Beijing. We use the start and end dates of “school holiday” as exogenous repeated shocks to the aggregate traffic congestion, and employ the two-stage least squares (2SLS) regression approach to examine the congestion and pollution consequences of such driving-to-school trips in Beijing. We find that, all else being equal, workdays during school holidays have a traffic congestion index 20% lower than that of non-school-holiday workdays. Such a sharp reduction in congestion leads to a significant decrease in PM10 concentration. Policymakers should lower such “extra” congestion and environmental costs via optimizing the spatial balance between school supply and demand. |
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| Keywords: | Spatial separation Driving to school Traffic congestion Air pollution China |
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