The rapid development of urban transportation not only consumes more and more resources, but also brings about a series of environmental problems. Therefore, the development of urban transportation in the future should pay more attention to the impact on the environment while considering the convenience and fast travel of residents. Ecological footprint can be used as an effective indicator to measure the environmental problems caused by urban traffic development, and can guide the government to formulate relevant policies to manage urban traffic reasonably and effectively. The increasing ecological footprint of traffic leads to more and more serious ecological deficit, which is the problem of urban traffic and even the whole urban environment and unsustainable development. Therefore, some countermeasures and measures must be taken to increase the ecological footprint of traffic. This paper takes xi 'an as an example to build an ecological footprint model of urban traffic. Firstly, collect and process the data of vehicle ownership, operation characteristics, energy structure, energy consumption and pollutant emission in recent years. Secondly, calculate the ecological footprint of different transportation modes. Finally, analyze the research results and put forward some suggestions for sustainable development.

CICTP