Possible Emission Reductions From Ride-Sourcing Travel in a Global Megacity: The Case of Beijing

• Author: Baojun Tang,Biying Yu,Bin Wang,Yunfei Du,Yi-Ming Wei,Meimei Xue
• Published date: 01 June 2018
• Date: 01 June 2018
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1177/1070496518774102
• Subject Matter: Articles

Article

Possible Emission

Reductions From

Ride-Sourcing Travel in

a Global Megacity: The

Case of Beijing

Meimei Xue

1,2,3,4

, Biying Yu

1,2,3,4,5

,

Yunfei Du

1,2,3,4

, Bin Wang

1,2,3,4

, Baojun Tang

1,2,3,4

,

and Yi-Ming Wei

1,2,3,4,5

Abstract

Urban transportation in China is undergoing a revolution due to ride-sourcing. The

strong growth in ride-sourcing travel requires the government and the industry to

adopt strategies for reducing environmental impact. Here, we address a key gap in

knowledge on the emerging ride-sourcing travel model by designing a roadmap for

realizing low-emission ride-sourcing drawing from an analysis of raw big trip data for

Beijing. We found that adopting the most effective low-emission strategies requires

joint efforts involving governance and management, enterprise operations, and con-

sumer behavior change. With respect to issues of feasibility and effectiveness, the

enterprise operation strategy, involving polices that shorten the pick-up time and

increase the vehicle occupancy, is the best option, offering approximately 44% CO

2

and NOx emission reductions compared with the current situation. Promoting ride-

sourcing usage among car users or potential car users could help reduce emissions

attributing to less cars being manufactured (26% CO

2

and 24% NOx) but with

uncertainty. To achieve low-emission ride-sourcing travel, governments, enterprises,

and consumers must collaborate closely and define clear roles, responsibilities, and

relationships.

Journal of Environment &

Development

2018, Vol. 27(2) 156–185

!The Author(s) 2018

Reprints and permissions:

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DOI: 10.1177/1070496518774102

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1

Center for Energy and Environment Policy Research, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

2

BIT @ Didi Joint Laboratory of Sharing Economy and Behavior-Energy, Beijing, China

3

School of Management and Economics, Beijing Institute of Technology, Beijing, China

4

Beijing Key Lab of Energy Economics and Environmental Management, Beijing, China

5

Sustainable Development Research Institute for Economy and Society of Beijing, Beijing, China

Corresponding Authors:

Yi-Ming Wei and Biying Yu, Beijing Institute of Technology, Zhongguancun, Haidian, Beijing 100081,

China.

Email: wei@bit.edu.cn; yubiying_bj@bit.edu.cn

Keywords

sharing mobility, ride-sourcing travel, big trip data, low-emission strategy, emission

reduction

Introduction

Emerging ‘‘Zhuanche’’ and ‘‘Kuaiche’’ travel-sharing modes have f‌lourished in

China. We adopt the def‌inition by Rayle, Shaheen, Chan, Dai, and Cervero

(2014) and take ‘‘ride-sourcing’’ to refer to such sharing mobility.

1

Ride-sour-

cing can be regarded as an on-demand private taxi service, as ride-sourcing trips

are provided only to satisfy user demands. Private vehicle owners of‌fering rides

are similar to taxi drivers who operate for prof‌it in that they provide rides that

are not incidental to their own trips. The services provided by Sidecar, Uber, and

Lyft, which were launched around 2012, are examples of this model. In China,

DiDi Chuxing has replicated and extended this business model and of‌fers the

largest peer-to-peer platform for private vehicles. The ride-sourcing services in

China were f‌irst launched in August 2014. Despite its short history, ride-sourcing

travel has shown surprising growth in market penetration. Up to now, the

number of registered users reaches up to 450 million, which accounts for

34.6% of total population in 2017, and daily up to 25 million. According to

the latest public data, the service distance provided by DiDi ride-sourcing ser-

vices in China was approximately 6.54% of the public passenger transport

(DiDi, 2017; MOT, 2016). On the demand side, the emergence of ride-sourcing

has expanded mobility options available to residents and has served as a fast,

f‌lexible, and convenient source of mobility, especially in large and dense metro-

polises, where parking is constrained and where public transit services are

incomplete, whereas on the supply side, ride-sourcing serves as a business

mode that promotes the sharing economy and that increases the transport cap-

acity without creating extra demand for infrastructure. Besides, it may comple-

ment some types of public transit service and taxi ridership (Clewlow & Mishra,

2017; Contreras & Paz, 2017; Nie, 2017).

Given these social and economic benef‌its, and the experience and lessons in

North America (Clewlow & Mishra, 2017; Hampshire, Simek, Fabusuyi, Di, &

Chen, 2017; Hughes & MacKenzie, 2016), it is foreseeable that ride-sourcing, as

a new transport option, could greatly expand and attract considerable travel

demand in the future. As a support, on July 28, 2016, the Chinese Ministry of

Transport (MOT) of‌f‌icially recognized the legitimacy of this travel-sharing

mode, representing the f‌irst such approval in the world. Ride-sourcing is thus

recognized as a new travel mode in addition to the traditional modes in China.

Although the central government of China made a series of supplementary

regulations to standardize the development of sharing mobility, the consumers’

demand for ride-sourcing is still growing rapidly indicating that ride-sourcing

Xue et al. 157