Exploring the contributions of Ebike ownership, transit access, and the built environment to car ownership in a developing city

While many studies examine the correlates of car ownership, only a few have quantified the relative contributions of individuals' socio-economic characteristics, alternative transportation choices, and built environment attributes to car ownership in developing cities. By employing gradient boosting decision trees to the 2020 regional household travel survey data from Wuhan, a megacity in China, we estimated the respective impacts of these factors on car ownership. The results of this study highlight household wealth as the dominant factor in predicting car ownership. Additionally, the ownership of Ebikes, an alternative travel option, emerges as an important mitigator of car ownership. However, most transit and built environment variables contribute marginally to the prediction of car ownership – though an exception is to direct future development into inner city neighborhoods. The findings suggest that Ebikes not only serve as a crucial alternative to cars but also complement limited transit services. Therefore, in developing cities with growing economies, banning Ebikes would not be conducive to curbing car growth.