Examining threshold effects of built environment elements on travel-related carbon-dioxide emissions

Understanding how built environment features are associated with travel-related carbon-dioxide (CO₂) emissions is essential for planners to encourage environmentally sustainable travel through transportation and land use policies. Applying gradient boosting decision trees to the data from the Minneapolis-St. Paul metropolitan area, this study addresses two gaps in the literature by identifying critical built environment determinants of CO₂ emissions, and more importantly, illustrating threshold effects of built environment elements. The results show that three neighborhood-level built environment factors have the strongest influences on CO₂ emissions: distance to the nearest transit stop, job density, and land use diversity. The distance to downtowns also has a substantial impact. This study further confirms that built environment variables are effective only within a certain range. These threshold effects offer valuable implications for planners to achieve desirable environmental benefits efficiently.