Empirical Analysis of the Relationship between Car Use Behavior and Urban Characteristics: Case Study of China

Given the churning masses of congestions in most cities, a better understanding of the relationship between car use and urban characteristics in China is essential to traffic planning. Based on the travel data collected in 40 cities in China, this paper empirically explores how urban characteristics (city economy, urban density, urban size and urban form) affect the car use such as the car travel frequency, car travel time for one trip and the car mode split at the city level. Based on descriptive statistics, linear regression and non-liner regression, the car travel forecasting model was established. The empirical results show that the city economy plays the most important role in the car use in China at present. Urban density, urban size and urban form also have some effect on car use, but donpsilat significant as economy, and some interaction among car use characteristics does exist.