Investigating Private Cars Idling Behavior in Urban Areas

The rapid mechanization in China results in excessive adverse effects recently, such as traffic congestion and air pollution. Affected by the negative effects, an increasing number of citizens decide to use their private cars only at a certain time, which leads to the urban private cars idling (UPCI) phenomenon. In order to investigate the UPCI behavior and its influence factors, this paper, taking Nanjing city in China as a case study, conducted a detailed survey including 279 private car owners. A logistic regression model was developed to investigate the impact factors related with UPCI. The result of regression indicated that the number of children in a family was an impeding factor which caused the fewer UPCI behaviors. The smaller job-housing distances and independence on vehicles, however, aggravated the UPCI phenomenon. The results of this study are beneficial to understand the UPCI behavior, and provide useful information for the effective urban transportation demand management (TDM) and necessary guidance for urban private car purchase and usage.