Examining the determinants of freight transport emissions using a fleet segmentation approach

• Published in: Transportation research. Part D, Transport and environment Transport and environment, 2021-03, Vol.92, p.102726, Article 102726
• Main Authors: Pani, Agnivesh, Sahu, Prasanta K., Holguín-Veras, José
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Climate mitigation policy; Emissions; Fleet ownership; Freight travel pattern; Gross emitters
• ISSN: 1361-9209; 1879-2340
• DOI: 10.1016/j.trd.2021.102726

•Establishment-level analysis to put a price on greenhouse gas emission in freight transport sector.•Latent class analysis to divide establishments based on fleet-ownership patterns.•Examines the determinants of freight transport emission disaggregated by fleet segments.•Gross emitters in each fleet ownership segment are modeled for targeted policy interventions.•Implications for designing carbon tax and trading programs in developing economies like India. Concerns over transport energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have lately prompted significant attention towards vehicle ownership patterns and the distributional implications of climate mitigation policies. This paper contributes to freight transport literature by examining how establishments can be meaningfully grouped using their fleet ownership pattern (size and composition) and how these segments vary in their freight travel pattern and CO2 emission levels. The analysis performed using an establishment-based freight survey dataset from Kerala, a coastal state in India, revealed five latent classes of fleet ownership. The determinants of freight transport emissions and the gross emitters in fleet segments are presented subsequently by analyzing how the establishment-level characteristics (employment, business age, industry sector, value density, and relative location) explain the variation in CO2 emissions. The study findings offer insights for designing effective carbon policy instruments and incentive schemes to regulate the establishment-level freight travel pattern and control transport emissions.