Investigating the Impacts of Urban Built Environment on Travel Energy Consumption: A Case Study of Ningbo, China

Abstract

The built environment of cities has increasingly affected the travel mode of residents and led to changes in energy consumption, which is crucial to maintaining urban sustainability. Ningbo is a typical representative of urbanization on the east coast of China, and its energy consumption is in a period of rapid growth. Therefore, using the survey data of 22,112 traffic trip samples from nine streets in Ningbo, this paper establishes a regression analysis model, systematically analyzes the relationship between the built environment and domestic energy consumption from multiple dimensions, and reveals the impact mechanism of the built environment on domestic energy consumption. We find that (1) social and economic conditions are the main factors affecting traffic energy consumption. (2) The population density has a significant negative correlation effect on the energy consumption of transportation trips. When the population density increases by 1%, the energy consumption of total transportation trips, commuting trips, high-energy-consumption trips, and low-energy-consumption trips decreases by 0.094%, 0.115%, 0.273%, and 0.124%, respectively. (3) When the degree of mixed use of land increases by one percentage point, the energy consumption of total transportation trips, commuting trips, high-energy-consumption trips, and low-energy-consumption trips decreases by 0.415%, 0.421%, 2.574%, and 1.197%, respectively. (4) The density of road intersections has a significant negative correlation effect on the energy consumption of traffic trips. (5) The impact of the built environment on the energy consumption of transportation trips is greater than that of residential buildings.