1. Introduction
The economic development in China advanced rapidly with the GDP increased 9 times as much as it was in 1996, from 7181.36 billion to 4,668,905.21 billion in 2015 [
1]. The rapid development of economy has provided great opportunities for the automobile industry. By the time of 2015, the automobile production and sales in China have been ranked the number one in the world for seven consecutive years. In the same time, civil vehicles’ possession increased to 162.8445 million, nearly 14 times than the one in 1996 [
1]. The automobile industry has a strong leading role in industries such as iron and steel, metallurgy, rubber, petrochemicals and infrastructure, as well as service industries including automobile maintenance, automobile insurance and used car transactions. The automobile industry has become one of the pillar industries in national economy.
Although the rapid development of the automobile industry promoted social progress, drove economic growth and increased people’s travel efficiency, its negative economic, social and environmental effects have become increasingly prominent, such as traffic congestion, higher accident risk, unbalanced supply of parking facilities, high energy consumption and increased greenhouse gas emissions. Since 2011, the State Council has issued important regulations such as the Comprehensive Work Plan for Energy Conservation and the Work Plan for Speeding Up the Upgrading of Product Gasoline Quality so as to limit vehicle number and use intensity, encourage research on new-energy vehicles and enhance supervision over vehicle exhaust pollution. Governments in different regions successively introduced policies, such as improving automotive fuel quality, raise gasoline prices and charge parking fees at non-residential parking areas. Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, Guangzhou and other cities are trying to control the number of cars and reduce environmental pollution through the implementation of a number of policies, such as purchase lottery, odd-and-even license plate rule and differential traffic management for new energy vehicles thereby remitting the negative effects casing by the rapid vehicle possession growth.
The possession of civil vehicles in a country or region is often an indicator of car usage which has major impacts on the local and global environment. China is one of the countries that maintains the fastest growing rates of automobile ownership in the world [
2]; Dargay et al. [
3] predicted that the number of cars owned by every 1000 people in China will reach 270 by 2030. Deaths caused by traffic accidents have become the leading cause of death for people aged 5–44. The direct economic loss has accounted for approximately 1–3% of annual gross domestic product [
4]. Since 2000, oil consumption of the road transport sector has increased by nearly 9.6% per year. About 85% of gasoline and 42% of diesel are consumed by motor vehicles [
5]. In the developed cities, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, high-density parking spaces are seriously inadequate. Traffic congestion has become a serious social problem [
6]. Exhaust emissions caused by car trips seriously affect the ecological environment and human health [
7]. According to Sekine K’s [
8] study, people with long-term exposure to areas with high traffic density have a high prevalence of respiratory diseases. Results of previous studies have indicated that factors such as family characteristics, personal income, urban morphology and public transport service levels have significant impacts on vehicle ownership [
9,
10,
11,
12,
13]. Wu et al. [
11] used the fixed-effect model and random-effects model of panel data to investigate the driving factors of private car ownership in 32 provincial capital cities in China. Yang Z. et al. [
12] analyzed factors that influence automobile ownership in 293 Chinese cities from 1994 to 2012 based on two spatial scales—major economic zones and city sizes. Li [
13] analyzed the influencing factors in the development of car ownership from nationwide to city scales; Dargay [
3,
14,
15] and Matas [
16] found that the main influencing factor in car ownership is per capita GDP. Mogridge [
17] believes that family characteristics and capital income are determinants of car ownership. After quantitative analysis of the factors in car ownership, Huang [
18] found that the economy is the main factor. Many researches have shown that the growth of car ownership has a strong correlation with economic development. Xu [
19] indicated that economic level in China will continue growing in the next 30 years and china’s per capita GDP will likely reach 20,000 dollars by 2050. In the national sustained economic growth process, different geographical locations, industrial structures, human capital and production technologies in various regions in China have led to significant differences in their economic development levels [
20]. With a rapid economic development in various regions of China, undeveloped areas that have better urban ecological environment and natural ecological environment will become the new growth point of the future civil vehicle ownership but will also face greater challenges in terms of natural and social environment.
Despite of increasing studies, most of these studies focused on a country or region as a whole [
13], dividing China according to the three major economic regions (Eastern, middle and Western) [
11,
12,
18] and city sizes [
12]. Some other studies only focused on economically developed regions [
8,
9,
10,
11,
12,
18]. More attention should be paid to the long-term spatial-temporal development of civil vehicle in various provinces in China. It is necessary to reveal the correlation between economic and possession of civil vehicles in different regions. Taking China as an example, extensive socioeconomic inequalities exist in the eastern and western regions, coastal and inland regions. In general, the eastern and coastal areas are more developed, with higher levels of income and motorization, as opposed to the west and inland. According to the economic homogeneity of Chinese provinces, the Development Research Center of the State Council of China proposed eight economic regional divisions in 2005. Based on the three spatial scales (the whole country, 31 provinces (except Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan) and eight economic regions), we explored the temporal and spatial characteristics of civil vehicles possession at multiple spatial scales from 1996 to 2015. We also used the principal component analysis to construct the comprehensive indicators of economic levels and analyze the impact of economic development on the possession of civil vehicles.
4. Discussion
Based on the previous work [
33,
34,
35] and the three spatial scales (national, regional, provincial), this manuscript first analyzed the temporal characteristics of the possession of civil vehicles. The Mann Kendall test method is used to analyze the trend of time series (i.e., civil vehicle possession, Theil index, intra-regional inequalities, inter-regional inequalities and contribution rates of inequality, etc.) and detect the sudden change of the possession of civil vehicles. We analyze the possession of civil vehicles curve and map and use the Theil index to quantify the spatial distribution. And then we used principal components analysis (PCA) to calculate the weighted composite index that quantifies the level of economic development. Finally, we used panel data modeling to comprehensively examine the impact of economic development on the possession of civil vehicles in the country, various economic regions and provinces. In most developing countries like China, regional diversity of car possession is very common. Methods used in this study can be widely applied in these countries. Results of the analysis may provide theoretical basis and scientific guidance for a rational planning in the vehicle industry in developing countries.
The possession of civil vehicles in a country or region is often an indicator of the usage of cars. In the past two decades, with a rapid development of economy, the possession of civil vehicles has a substantial increase. This trend has a major impact on the local and global environment. There are significant inequalities in the spatial and temporal distribution of civil vehicle’ possession in various provinces or regions in China. However, few studies explored the possession of civil vehicles owned by the long-term and multi-space scales in China. Results of this paper explained the regional diversity of civil vehicles’ possession in multi-space scales, including the spatial and temporal characteristics and the impacts of economic levels on the possession of civil vehicles. These results provide meaningful suggestions for policymakers and stakeholders.
During 1996–2015, the possession of civil vehicles in China increased significantly, among the possession of civil vehicles, its spatial inequalities and the positive impact of economic development on it have shown a trend of decreasing from east to west and from coastal to inland. The growth rate of civil vehicles’ possession in various provinces has intensified since 2005–2006. In general, the number of civilian vehicles in China has shown significant phased changes: Slow growth in 1996–2005 and rapid growth in 2006–2015. From 2000 to 2015, the disparities in the spatial distribution of civil vehicles’ possession showed a trend of “first increased slightly and then decreased continuously.” Results are consistent with the study of the spatial and temporal evolution of regional economic differences in China by Feng [
36]. During 2000–2005, the within-regional inequalities were greater than the between-regional inequalities. The inequalities between provinces in the northern coastal areas (NC) were the main components of the within-regional inequalities, since 2006, the between-regional inequalities have been greater than the within-regional inequalities.
The level of economic development has a significant positive impact on the possession of civil vehicles, which is greater in 2006–2015 than in 1996–2005. As pointed out in many studies, the possession of civil vehicles has a strong relationship with economic level. In general, the spatial-temporal characteristics of civil vehicles were in line with economic development. 1995 to 2005 is the transitional stage of the initial establishment of the market economic system in China. The economic level at this stage is relatively low, the growth rate of civil vehicles is slow and the economic level has a less positive impact on civilian vehicles. The development strategy in China is mainly in the form of points, concentrated in Shenzhen, Shanghai, Beijing, Tianjin and other places. These strategies have created an imbalance in regional economic development and the development of the automobile industry. During the period of the 11th Five-Year Plan and the 12th Five-Year Plan (i.e., 2006 to 2015), economy had a rapid development, as a result, the growth rate of civil car possession is also accelerating. In order to achieve a sustainable development, Chinese government prepared and implemented a series of policies, such as the “Rise of Central China,” “Northeast Area Revitalization Plan,” “China Western Development” and “Coordinated rural-urban Development” to reduce regional disparities. Because of these policies, the problems of imbalanced regional economic development and the disparities in regional civil car possession have been alleviated. However, in some provinces (or cities) with higher levels of economic development, such as Beijing, Shanghai, Tianjin, the economic level has less effect on the possession of civil vehicles. This trend may be caused by stricter restrictions on vehicle possession, such as purchase lottery and odd-and-even license plate policies.
As our analysis is based on data collected for each province, it is hard to investigate civil vehicle development through the indicators of per capita road area, public transportation and building area. As a result, we only used the gross regional product, household consumption expenditure, length of highways, local governments general budgetary revenue and total investment in fixed asset to measure economic development level. Chinese government has already adopted a series of intervention policies in some areas to curb the negative effect caused by the rapid growth of civil vehicle. At this point, we are not able to measure the influence of these interventions on the rate of civil vehicle possession. this paper thus does not take this part into consideration. We will focus on these issues in our future research.