Abstract
The possession of civil vehicles in a country or a region often reflects its usage of cars. The purpose of this study is to better understand the regional diversity of civil vehicles’ possession in multiple geographic scales (national, regional, provincial). We also aim to investigate the impact of economic levels on the possession of civil vehicles through the lens of Mk test, Theil index, principal component analysis and panel data models. Results show that the possession quantity of civil vehicles in China changed significantly, with a slow growth in 1996–2005 and a rapid growth in 2006–2015. During 1996–2015, the possession quantity of civil vehicles revealed a spatial inequality. The positive impact of economic development on the possession of civil vehicles is gradually decreasing from east to west and from coastal to inland. From 2000 to 2015, disparities in the spatial distribution of civil vehicles showed a trend of ‘increasing slightly in the first place then decreasing continuously,’ during 2000–2005, within-regional inequalities are greater than between-regional inequalities. The inequalities between provinces in the northern coastal areas (NC) were the main reasons for within-regional inequalities. Since 2006, between-regional inequalities have been greater than within-regional inequalities. The level of economic development has a significant positive impact on the possession of civil vehicles; the spatio-temporal patterns of civil vehicles in most areas are in line with economic development trends.
Highlights
The economic development in China advanced rapidly with the GDP increased 9 times as much as it was in 1996, from 7181.36 billion to 4,668,905.21 billion in 2015 [1]
Testing trend is done at the specific α significance level when | Zs |> Z1−α/2, the null hypothesis is rejected showing a significant trend
Change point can be found by two-sided test, two lines—Z1 and Z2
Summary
The economic development in China advanced rapidly with the GDP increased 9 times as much as it was in 1996, from 7181.36 billion to 4,668,905.21 billion in 2015 [1]. The rapid development of economy has provided great opportunities for the automobile industry. By the time of 2015, the automobile production and sales in China have been ranked the number one in the world for seven consecutive years. Civil vehicles’ possession increased to 162.8445 million, nearly 14 times than the one in 1996 [1]. The automobile industry has a strong leading role in industries such as iron and steel, metallurgy, rubber, petrochemicals and infrastructure, as well as service industries including automobile maintenance, automobile insurance and used car transactions. The automobile industry has become one of the pillar industries in national economy
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