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Commercial Vehicle (CV) ownership is a variable of interest in planning interventions and policy instruments for sustainable transportation, but the decision-making process to own a vehicle fleet is not well understood in the context of freight transportation. The necessity to understand the heterogeneity in CV type ownership arises from the need to mitigate externalities associated with them. We argue that the need to own CVs is a derived demand arising out of the demand to move goods and is influenced by freight handling requirements of businesses. To this end, this paper examines the dual role (mediation) of freight generation variables while modelling CV ownership, which is an underexplored area of research in freight transportation planning. Establishment-based freight survey data from seven cities in Kerala, India, are used to develop structural equation models. The CV ownership is analysed through freight generation variables as mediators, apart from the direct influence of business size indicators and commodity characteristics. The study findings confirm the intermediatory role of freight generation and show the consequences of neglecting such a dual role in the overall CV ownership modelling paradigm. The model estimates offer insights into the causal structure of the decision-making process of establishments to own different levels of fleet ownership and composition. Understanding the business managers' decisions to own CVs in their fleet can be used for freight traffic management using urban consolidation centre (UCC). The statistical findings also provide the total effects between fleet and employment size and how freight generation mediates this relationship. The path diagrams representing the CV ownership patterns can be useful to policy makers while implementing policies like low-emission zones. • Heterogeneity in commercial vehicle ownership decisions are examined. • Dual role (mediation) of freight generation in CV ownership is revealed in path diagrams. • Causal structure of fleet ownership and composition decision-making process is revealed in models. • Employment size is having greater positive effects on ownership of medium and heavy-duty vehicles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Establishment-level analysis to put a price on greenhouse gas emission in freight transport sector. • Latent class analysis to divide establishments based on fleet-ownership patterns. • Examines the determinants of freight transport emission disaggregated by fleet segments. • Gross emitters in each fleet ownership segment are modeled for targeted policy interventions. • Implications for designing carbon tax and trading programs in developing economies like India. Concerns over transport energy consumption and greenhouse gas emissions have lately prompted significant attention towards vehicle ownership patterns and the distributional implications of climate mitigation policies. This paper contributes to freight transport literature by examining how establishments can be meaningfully grouped using their fleet ownership pattern (size and composition) and how these segments vary in their freight travel pattern and CO 2 emission levels. The analysis performed using an establishment-based freight survey dataset from Kerala, a coastal state in India, revealed five latent classes of fleet ownership. The determinants of freight transport emissions and the gross emitters in fleet segments are presented subsequently by analyzing how the establishment-level characteristics (employment, business age, industry sector, value density, and relative location) explain the variation in CO 2 emissions. The study findings offer insights for designing effective carbon policy instruments and incentive schemes to regulate the establishment-level freight travel pattern and control transport emissions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]