| Abstract: | This paper aims to extrapolate the energy consumption and environmental emissions data on the urban passenger transport system in Beijing, to assess the cost-effectiveness and emission reduction potential of promising technology options for transport systems, and to identify options with both reduction potential and cost-effectiveness. Furthermore, it identifies major barriers to the adoption of such options in Beijing. The long-range Energy Alternatives Planning model, the least-cost approach and the Analytical Hierarchy model are used for these three purposes, respectively. The results show that the fuel demand in the Beijing urban passenger transport system will increase rapidly in the future, along with travel demand and vehicle stock. For CO2 mitigation targets, diesel vehicles have both emission reduction potential and cost-effectiveness, followed by mass rapid transport systems. The ranking of barriers is similar for all three technology options, and found to be financial incentive, public awareness, lack of infrastructure, high initial cost and institutional/administrative barriers, in descending order of importance. Lack of financial incentive plays a very important role in the adoption of new technology options. |
