Modeling Car Ownership and Urban Density for Developing Cities

抄録

Restraining the increasing pace of car ownership rate in developing cities is a major policy concern. Car ownership modeling can potentially generate important policy insights for formulating urban transport strategies. The effectiveness of higher urban density to discourage car ownership has long been debated, but the established modeling streams rarely include urban density as possible policy leverage. This paper first discusses the cross-sectional patterns of car ownership and some common reinforcing feedback loops involving car ownership, and set a hypothesis on policy relevance of urban density. A modified model formulation that include urban density in a policy relevant way is proposed, and validated through estimation. Utilizing the estimated parameters, maximum income elasticity of car ownership is computed, which corresponds at a per capita income level of about US dollar 4000 (in 1996 price). This figure may provide useful guidance to policy makers as the take-off stage for motorization.