| Summary: | The transport sector is one of the most important and potential sectors to achieve low-carbon development in China. As economic growth is desirable, but high-level traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions are not. This paper estimated the on-road traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions and investigated the decoupling states of traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions from economic growth for six cities in Hebei province from 1995 to 2015. In 2015, the on-road traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions were ranked, as follows: Tangshan (4.75 Mt) > Handan (3.38 Mt) > Baoding (1.38 Mt) > Zhangjiakou (1.05 Mt) > Langfang (1.01 Mt) > Chengde (0.46 Mt). Two turning points of traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions during the study period were found. From 2008 to 2013, the traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions increased more rapidly than before. After 2013, the traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions of three cities (Baoding, Handan and Chengde) began to decrease, and the traffic CO<sub>2</sub> emissions’ growth rates of the other three cities (Zhangjiakou, Langfang and Tangshan) became lower than before. The decoupling states during 1996⁻2015 can be divided into four phases: decoupling-coupling concurrence stage (1996⁻2000), decoupling dominant stage (2001⁻2008), coupling dominant stage (2009⁻2013), and improvement stage (2014⁻2015). Chengde and Baoding were identified due to their good local practice on decoupling CO<sub>2</sub> emissions in transport sector from economic growth. These results will enrich the greenhouse gas inventory of China at city level and provide scientific support to achieve the mitigation of CO<sub>2</sub> emissions in the transport sector.
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