Fuel consumption, vehicle quantities, and total factor inefficiency in China

Abstract

Scale-controlling and technology-upgrading measures are considered effective for mitigating vehicle exhaust emissions. This study investigated the impacts of fuel consumption and vehicle quantities on the total factor inefficiency in China’s highway transport sector during 2011–2015, based on the Bounded Adjusted Measure Data Envelopment Analysis (BAM-DEA) model combined with natural and managerial disposability scenarios. The results showed that the average global inefficiency (GIE) score of the exhaust emissions (CO, HC, NOx, and PM) was 0.41 under the assumption of natural disposability and 0.23 in the managerial disposability situation. Moreover, the main causes of total factor inefficiency scores from the perspective of natural disposability were road length, fuel consumption, and exhaust emissions, whereas those from a managerial disposability perspective were road length and exhaust emissions. These two results suggested that environmental efficiency can be promoted by increasing the quantities of clean-energy vehicles and high-quality gasoline/diesel consumption. In terms of the spatial distribution of GIE, the scores showed a decreasing trend from China’s northwestern inland regions to its southeastern coastal regions under both natural and managerial disposability. Environmental efficiency in some provinces (such as Yunnan) demonstrated good progress under managerial disposability, but other regions did not (such as Hebei and Ningxia). Thus, each province should choose appropriate strategies regarding vehicle quantities and fuel consumption according to the technical inefficiency scores of differing disposability situations.