Energy Consumption Status and Energy Efficiency of Transportation Industry: The Case of China.

Transportation industry is an important pillar in China’s economic development and one of the main industries that consumes fossil energy and emits pollution gases. Decreasing the pollutant emission during the energy consumption process by improving energy efficiency of the transportation industry can realize coordinated development of transportation industry and ecological environment. The existing literature regarding estimation of energy efficiency in the transportation industry was reviewed firstly. Then, energy consumption status of transportation industry in China was summarized. In addition, the data envelopment analysis (DEA) model was presented to estimate transportation energy efficiency. Results demonstrate that the transportation industry’s energy consumption status can be manifested by sustainable rapid growth of total energy consumption, continuous high proportion of energy consumption of the transportation industry in total energy consumption, and year-by-year growth of energy utilization efficiency. The mean values of industrial energy overall technical efficiency, industrial energy pure technical efficiency and industrial energy scale efficiency are 0.994, 0.998, and 0.996. Moreover, the overall conditions of the energy input and output efficiency in the transportation efficiency are benign and stable. The conclusions in this study are important positive reference for adjusting energy consumption structure, realizing energy conservation and emission reduction objectives, and improving economic efficiency and technological progress in terms of energy utilization of the transportation industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]