In view of long-standing air pollution problem, this paper proposes to conduct air pollution analysis by the combination of air quality pollution index and air pollution control index, which is of real significance to improving air quality of China to certain extent. Based on the panel data of 31 main cities of China during 2008—2019, from the perspective of quantile regression, this paper analyzes the impact of air quality pollution index (NO2), economic growth (per capita GDP) and public transportation (the number of bus and trolley bus operations at the end of the year) on air quality situation in China. The results show that NO2 has bigger negative impact on air quality at low quantile and has lower impact on air quality at high quantile, on the contrary, however, at high quantile, the degree of the negative correlation between per capita GDP and air quality is bigger than that at low quantile, furthermore, the increase of public transportation utilization plays positively boosting role in the improvement of air quality in China, and the positive impact at high quantile is bigger than that at low quantile.