Transport pollution in China - Evidence from Beijing

China's rapid economic growth has resulted in serious environmental issues especially on the urban air pollution, which has caused serious harm to the health of residents and large economic losses. It is widely accepted that the road transport sector is one of the major emitters in China. However, it remains unclear who is more responsible for severe air pollution between the freight and passenger transport subsectors, especially in urban areas of China. In this paper, we divided the road transport sector into the freight and passenger subsectors and investigated the following important issues: (a) Are there any causal relationships between air pollution and the foresaid subsectors? (b) How do we identify the impacts of the changes in the two subsectors on the air pollution in urban China areas? (c) What are the contributions of the two subsectors to the air pollution in urban areas of China? Alternatively, who is to blame more for the current situation, freight or passenger subsectors? Our empirical findings could help the policy makers and researchers had better understand the status of air pollution in China by distinguishing the different proportions of the emissions from the subsectors. Therefore, some pertinent policies could be implemented to mitigate the emissions from China's road transport sector.