Comparison of policies on vehicle ownership and use between Beijing and Shanghai and their impacts on fuel consumption by passenger vehicles

► Beijing and Shanghai are the first two cities in China to implement policies on vehicle ownership and use. This paper compared policies in the two cities and evaluated their effectiveness. ► A bottom-up model was established to simulate the fuel consumption by passenger vehicles. By using this model, fuel consumptions by passenger vehicles in Beijing and Shanghai from 1990 to 2020 under two scenarios of current policy and no policy were estimated. Under current policy, fuel consumptions by passenger vehicles in Beijing and Shanghai in 2020 were estimated to reach 7.5 and 3.9 billion liters, respectively. ► This paper discussed the benefits and negative impacts of policies in Beijing and Shanghai, which are highly relevant for cities in China and abroad that are facing the problems of traffic congestion and excessive vehicle fuel consumption.