Correlation Between Commuting Behavior and Air Pollution

Raphael Yang

One of the biggest causes of air pollution in a city is the use of gasoline engined vehicles, such as cars, buses, and motorcycles, which is used every day as a commuting mode for citizens. Commuting behaviors of people can be categorized into two big factors, public transportation and private transportation. The research invested on whether or not higher usage rate of public transportation affected the air pollution level, through comparison between three cities, New York City, London, and Jakarta. It was found that the cities with higher utility of public transportation and a lower use of private vehicles had substantially less pollutant density than cities with excessive amounts of private vehicle use, concluding that public transportation has significant influence in the pollution level of a city.