Scandinavian Working Papers in Economics

HUI Working Papers,
HUI Research

No 117: To what extent are CO2 emissions from intra-urban shopping trips by cars affected by drivers’ travel behaviour and store location?

Tao Jia and Johan Håkansson ()
Additional contact information
Tao Jia: Wuhan University, School of Remote Sensing and Information Engineering, Postal: Luoyu Road No.129, Wuhan, Hubei Province, P.R.China
Johan Håkansson: HUI Research, Postal: Regeringsgatan 60, SE-10329 Stockholm, Sweden and Dalarna University, School of Technology and Business Studies, SE-79131 Falun, Sweden

Abstract: Transportation is seen as one of the major sources of CO2 pollutants nowadays. The impact of increased transport in retailing should not be underestimated. Most previous studies have focused on transportation and underlying trips, in general, while very few studies have addressed the specific affects that, for instance, intra-city shopping trips generate. Furthermore, most of the existing methods used to estimate emission are based on macro-data designed to generate national or regional inventory projections. There is a lack of studies using micro-data based methods that are able to distinguish between driver behaviour and the locational effects induced by shopping trips, which is an important precondition for energy efficient urban planning. The aim of this study is to implement a micro-data method to estimate and compare CO2 emission induced by intra-urban car travelling to a retail destination of durable goods (DG), and non-durable goods (NDG). We estimate the emissions from aspects of travel behaviour and store location. The study is conducted by means of a case study in the city of Borlänge, where GPS tracking data on intra-urban car travel is collected from 250 households. We find that a behavioural change during a trip towards a CO2 optimal travelling by car has the potential to decrease emission to 36% (DG), and to 25% (NDG) of the emissions induced by car-travelling shopping trips today. There is also a potential of reducing CO2 emissions induced by intra-urban shopping trips due to poor location by 54%, and if the consumer selected the closest of 8 existing stores, the CO2 emissions would be reduced by 37% of the current emission induced by NDG shopping trips.

Keywords: CO2 emission; GPS trajectory; travel behaviour; store location; durable/non-durable goods

JEL-codes: L81; Q51; R11

17 pages, April 19, 2016

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