A study on the timing of Asian metropolitan railway development with motorization and its effect on CO2 emissions from transportation

In metropolitan areas of developing and emerging economies in Asia, a remarkable phenomenon of motorization with rapid economic growth is accelerating a continuous formation of auto-dependent urban structures. The delayed timing of urban railway introduction could contribute to a negative spiral of motorization, which could provoke a severe increase in CO₂ emissions from transportation sector. In this paper, we attempt to evaluate the timing of urban railway station development based on the level of automobile share and an analysis of the CO₂ emissions in the catchment areas of newly introduced urban railway stations in Asian metropolitan areas; Japan, Malaysia and Indonesia. The result quantitatively reveals that the earlier development of the stations in comparison to the progress of motorization tended to result in a statistically significant reduction of CO₂ emissions from transportation year-by-year in the catchment areas. In addition, this study demonstrates statistically that urban development harmonized with urban railway systems with a higher service frequency should be a key factor on the strategic realization of low-carbon urban forms along public transportation corridors.