Dynamic and Static Analysis of Carbon Emission Efficiency in China’s Transportation Sector

Abstract

As the main undesirable output of the transportation sector, carbon dioxide (CO2) emission is the key point to achieving carbon balance in the whole sector. In this paper, the bounded adjustment measure (BAM) data envelopment analysis method is used to measure the total factor production (TFP) efficiency of transportation system and the source of its inefficiency. Based on this, we use the global Malmquist index combined with the BAM to analyze the key factors of environmental productivity change from 2004 to 2019 in terms of dynamic changes in technology level, production scale and management efficiency. The results show that the main reasons for the low efficiency of carbon emission production in China’s transportation sector are unreasonable energy utilization, excess labor resources and excessive CO2 emission caused by low technology level. Further analysis shows that China’s overall environmental production efficiency has begun to show a slow rising trend. Improvement of management level is the biggest driving force for the growth of total factor productivity of China’s transportation sector, while the improvement of scale and technology should be strengthened for the improvement of overall production efficiency. There are spatial differences in the production efficiency of China’s transportation sector. In the future, different provinces should focus on improving the production efficiency of transport industry.