Scenario simulation of CO2 emissions from light-duty passenger vehicles under land use-transport planning: A case of Shenzhen International Low Carbon City

Abstract Mitigating transport emissions acts a significant role in coping with global climate change and building sustainable cities. Since light-duty passenger vehicles (LDPVs) significantly contribute to transport CO2 emissions, it is essential to evaluate their emissions for the policy-making of sustainable transport strategies. However, related studies concerning integrated land use-transport planning are limited. Therefore, this study simulated and evaluated CO2 emissions from LDPVs at the community level using an integrated model, where the mixed-use development (MXD) model was adopted to estimate travel demand based on mixed land-use and transport accessibility. A vehicle emission calculation model was then employed to calculate CO2 emissions with the estimated travel demand. With this model, the policy impacts on CO2 emissions from LDPVs were simulated under different planning policy scenarios of land use-transport planning. As a leading development project of international cooperation on sustainable urbanization in China, Shenzhen International Low Carbon City was chosen as the study case. The results indicated the significance of the spatial equalized patterns of both mixed land-use and transport facilities. This new framework can be used to evaluate and promote low-carbon transport policy options for integrated spatial planning in the sustainable urbanization of developing countries.