Predicting of motor vehicle carbon emissions and spatio-temporal characteristic analysis in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region

In China, road traffic carbon emissions and their share in total carbon emissions have significantly increased. In the context of double carbon, the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the largest urban agglomeration in northern China, is receiving more and more attention. Due to the unbalanced development in Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei urban agglomeration, this thesis presents three computational models to calculate road traffic carbon emissions for large, medium-sized, and small cities and intercity traffic arteries based on the road network. The results show that in 2019, Beijing has the highest road carbon emissions reaching 19.91 million t CO2 which is almost three times that of Shijiazhuang, the capital city of Hebei province. Dwellers’ commuting usually results in an increase of 2.9%, 3.3%, and 4.5% on weekdays compared with weekends for Tianjin, Shijiazhuang, and Beijing, respectively. As for the intercity road, the daily traffic flow is about 1.92 million vehicles, leading to total carbon emissions of 22.97 million t CO2. In addition, the reduction potential of carbon emissions in Beijing is evaluated. If the average road speed is increased to 0.9Vf (road design speed) during the morning rush hour in Beijing from 7 a.m. to 8 a.m., the road emission reduction could reach 57.85%.