Inter-city passenger transport in larger urban agglomeration area: emissions and health impacts

Emissions from road transport have significant impacts on climate change and air quality. However, few studies focused on long-term emission changes, long-range passenger transport of air pollutants, especially, neglecting how those cities with larger urban agglomeration area interact with each other. This article fills the gap to evaluate interacting emissions from inter-city passenger transport and related PM2.5 health impacts, also to assess possible development in passenger transport sector in long-term post fossil period. Shenyang Metropolitan Area is chosen as a case in which include eight neighboring cities, covering 23.6 million inhabitants. Results show that total air pollutants and greenhouse gases (GHGs) emissions from urban agglomeration area passenger transport reached 265 kt and 17 kt in 2012, respectively, and may result in about 170 deaths per year. Importantly, the interacting emissions are closely related with the local economic development of destination city, meaning that interactions between each city in an urban agglomeration area are mostly based on economic cooperation. In order to mitigate and adapt to such emissions, different scenarios were set up for policy making and implementing. Comparing with business-as-usual scenario, optimal scenarios with the promotion of hybrid vehicles, plug-in electric vehicles and ethanol vehicles can lead to less air pollutants and GHGs. Finally, appropriate policies for supporting the application of the optimal scenario were raised and discussed so that policy-makers can seek an innovative pathway to both mitigate and adapt to climate change and improve air quality in transport sector of an urban agglomeration area.