Time-series analysis of the relationship between urban layout and CO₂ emission by automobile

Abstract

Recently there is an ongoing effort to reduce automobile dependency to decrease CO₂ emission. Though "compact city" is widely used term for this purpose, its clear definition is not established. Especially, it is not clear that which effect is more significant, "increase of population density" or "functional urban layout". Firstly, this study aims to catch time series trend of automobile CO₂ emission in 38 Japanese cities from 1987 to 2005 based on National Person Trip Survey. Secondly, effects of several types of "functional urban layouts" are examined by the regression model. It is clarified that automobile CO₂ emission is still increasing in each city, especially in local city. "Functional urban layouts", such as the corridor urban form is recommended for less automobile CO₂ emission based on statistical analysis.