Vehicle mix evaluation in Beijing's passenger-car sector: From air pollution control perspective

The transport sector has been one of the largest source of carbon emission and urban air pollutants. The research on the coordinated development of pollutant and carbon emission reduction in transport industry is helpful to the realization of urban pollutant prevention and carbon emission reduction, especially in big cities. Thus, a multi-period bottom-up vehicle development mathematical model is proposed to analyze the technology development path, emission path and energy structure adjustment path, and the synergistic benefits of carbon dioxide (CO₂) emission reduction under a expected air pollution emission standard. Four pollutants, carbon monoxide (CO), hydrocarbons (HC), nitrogen oxides (NO_x), and particulate matter (PM), generated from the vehicle are considered in this model. Then, the proposed model is used to analyze the related vehicle structure and energy consumption under the expected emission standards for Beijing during 2020 and 2035. The technology development path, emission path and energy structure adjustment path are examined, and the synergistic benefits of CO₂ emission reduction are also studied. Some important implication are found as follows: (1) Even with the goal of environmental pollution control only, new energy vehicles will have an explosive growth period, starting from about 2025. (2) Strict air pollution emission policies do not always lead to the rapid development of new energy vehicles before 2025. (3) The four main pollutants show different levels of synergistic effect among which CO on HC and NO_x on PM are obvious, respectively. (4) Even under the control of the air pollution policy, the synergistic effect to CO₂ emission reduction is also obvious. Compared to the baseline case, the reduction benefit from the MILD and STRICT environmental policies are 30 and 70 million yuan, respectively.