Empirical study on carbon emission measurement and influencing factors of urban traffic based on “Population-Economy-Environment”

Economic growth, urban expansion, traffic dependence, and urban lifestyle have caused a large amount of energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions in cities. The issue of urban greenhouse gas emissions has become a global focus and a research hotspot. This paper analysed the causality of driving factors and identified the key elements such as urban population, economy, energy and motor vehicles through system dynamics (SD) and econometric model. Then, it conducted empirical analysis and explored the impact of factors on urban transportation carbon emissions taking Beijing as an example. The research results showed that in addition to energy consumption, other factors were positively correlated with traffic carbon emissions. It believed that in order to control urban traffic carbon emissions, we must control the urban population, economy and the number of vehicles rationally. With the optimization of energy structure, the structural adjustment of traffic energy consumption is conducive to energy conservation and emission reduction in the transportation industry, and the decoupling of the total energy consumption of traffic and the carbon emissions from transportation.