Should local governments introduce Beijing and Shanghai style means to control traffic?
Qingdao Traffic
Although new energy propulsion systems seemed to be the talk of the town at the Chengdu based Global Auto Forum this year, it seems that the issue of traffic and where it will go was largely overlooked, any visitor to Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou or even any second tier city in China will see that the infrastructure issue is more of a concern than the green issue in most cities. How can cities across China continue to develop their infrastructure without limiting car sales? Of course Beijing came down with the ultimate response of simply banning car sales and then limiting car sales to just 20,000 new cars per month, Shanghai introduced an auction of license plates that sees prices shoot up when demand increases, prices are currently around 58,000RMB (nearly 10,00USD) and Guangzhou city seems to be so far ignoring the issue at hand. Beijing’s early traffic control methods of odd/even license plates being removed from the roads on a certain day are being introduced in other cities, Hangzhou for example introduced the system earlier this month as traffic in the second tier city had crawled to a halt, the same control methods are spreading across China with some tier two and tier three cities experimenting with them.
One session of the World Auto Forum was devoted entirely to the development of sustainable mobility and smart traffic systems, prior to the session I asked Dr. Li Ke Qiang of Tsinghua University (not the Li Ke Qiang) what his views were on Beijing’s license plate lottery system, his answer was short and curt: “It is stupid” he said “It harms the industry with no real results“, looking over Beijing’s car sales figures for this year and you cannot help but agree with him. Dr. Li was not shy in talking his opinion to the stage either, he was joined on stage by Mr. Liu Zhao who is the Deputy Director General for the Public Transportation Bureau at the Ministry of Public Security – simplifying the overly long title we can say he’s the number two in the traffic bureau that ultimately rubber stamps any traffic calming measures. Mr. Zhao was out to defend the Beijing policy by simply stating that Beijing’s infrastructure could not keep up with demand for new cars, he did not clearly say that the methodology used in Beijing would be management but he did state “Beijing’s yesterday will be other cities tomorrow if they do not control traffic now”
When the charismatic host, Ma HongTao, from CCTV asked the question “Do you agree with Beijing’s methods” only Liu Zhao put his hand up in favor, other panelists were in favor of smarter traffic systems that would potentially be able to control large amounts of traffic, Shao Wei Min was eager to point out that by taking away the right to buy a car you are impeding upon possible rights issues, but by ignoring the issue at hand China’s roads will continue to be clogged arteries.
So an impasse on how to handle China’s traffic continues, whilst many European cities have shunned the automobile in favor of the bicycle, its unlikely that China’s masses will rotate back to their two wheeled vehicles now that they have the comfort and ease of the car.
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I have been in China for almost 2 years now. I don’t think number of cars is an issue. Most of the road traffic that I have witness in various cities are due to people don’t follow traffic rules. In secondary roads, I have seen drivers park on the street to drop their kids off in school. That have reduced a normal two lane road down to one lane or either no lane. Sometimes even triple parallel park. That caused huge congestion.
How about green left turn signals couples with green light for on coming traffic? Both side don’t yield to each other. The left turn traffic will usually block on coming traffic and that caused a traffic back up as well.
Then, we have drivers slowing down approaching a green light intersection, because there are so many bicyclists, electric scooters, or even motorcycles that don’t obey traffic light. A smooth flowing traffic has to slow down because of it.
This is China. We learn fast, but somehow our traffic etiquette is far behind other parts of the world. I think if we solve that, we can improve traffic throughput and reduce congestion.
A bit part of the problem here in Chongqing is the gov officials who have the roads blocked off for them to pass through. They have personal police notorcycle escorts that go and block intersections and traffic for kilometers then everyone has to wait for the official to come through. This happens outside my flat at least 2 times a day causing massive traffic delays on a major road. This sort of pig headed elitism that chinese have when they get behind the wheel of a car and think they are godlike that holds things back. They dont need to follow the rules, they are too good for it.
Oh yeah, the motorcades are annoying. We get that in BJ too, though not quite as often as you. I have observed that they are doing a better job of managing/scheduling these, as the amount of time that traffic disrupted is less than it used to be.
Had a quick chat with some higher ups in the BJ govt a few days ago, its estimated that up to 35% of cars on the road in our glorious dusty capital are government cars for municipal, national or local regional governments.
That’s higher than I would’ve guessed, but I wouldn’t doubt it as there are a lot of gov’t vehicles on the roads here (black A6s, black Passats, black Cayennes, etc.)
Govt cars are also limited these days especially with regards to their use, so what’s the back door solution? Companies loaning out their cars to politicians of course!
One big issue here is the lack of roads. I may have read it here or somewhere else, but the % land used for roads here is much lower than cities in developed countries. Sadly, local gov’ts here don’t have much financial incentive to build new roads (they would rather sell it to property developers).
It would be interesting to learn how many Chinese universities are offering highway traffic engineering…..
Seems current highway traffic control is a far cry from state of the art.
dragin, couldn’t agree with you more – HOV (high occupant vehicle) lanes could help, controlled access highway onramps, etc……but these things only work when a society follows the rule of law instead of the rule of man.
joninchina, I think the money is there to make it state of the art but for now infrastructure still means little more than blacktop and guardrails. It’s gonna take time.
And as for the rule of law, that is something that will take education of at least another generation.
Even our habit of “Looking both ways” is not instinctive but rather learned behavior.
By the time its all said and done, bicycles will be back in vogue.
> joninchina, I think the money is there to make it state of the art but for now
> infrastructure still means little more than blacktop and guardrails
Don’t forget the traffic cameras…
I’ll add my 2 cents here……..and I have a “easy” solution for SOME of the traffic issues here – FLEX SCHEDULING. Those of us who live in China know that the worst traffic times are 8-8:30am, 12:00pm (lunch) and 5:30-6:00pm. Why? Because everyone in the country is either going to school or work at the same damn time! Imagine the traffic nightmares if a school’s front gate is near the intersection of 2 major streets……now imagine that scene at 5:30pm in the afternoon. Two words needed here – INSANE and DANGEROUS. Many countries around the world have flex scheduling to ease the overload of traffic during commute times – some people start work at 7am and get done at 3pm, some start at 8am, some start at 9am, etc……it eases up on the insanity of commutes and spreads the flow of traffic out over a longer period of time. Easier on restaurants, schools, easier to get a taxi….thank about all the various benefits. Yes, this would require a few “adjustments” on the part of society based on it’s present mindset – but imagine how much more “civilized” the morning and evening commute could be.
Too many issues with this, but I think flex scheduling for holidays would be a great deal better. The UK used such a system during the Industrial Revolution to make sure that work was always being carried out at the right time, certain village and towns would be scheduled to have holidays at certain times of the summer to avoid the entire country being on holiday at once.
Jon, I think you are onto something here. This week I’ve been leaving for work earlier and earlier to try to find the time when the roads are least congested. Today I left home at 7:00am, and while the traffic going into the city was a dream, once in the core of the city it was much more congested than I expected. But overall I got to work in just over an hour, which is an improvement. And I’ll be able to leave work at 5:00pm today – based on past experience the drive home at this time should be quick.
Next Monday I’m going to try to leave the house at 6:30am – hopefully that will be the sweet spot, as I don’t think I’ll be able to wake up any earlier!
Making a change like this is never easy (and yes there are issues to deal with Ash)….but ultimately society benefits A LOT because of fewer lost hours of productivity. Keep in mind that during the main part of the day (9am-3pm) EVERYONE is still at their jobs – business lunches can still happen, etc. Technically, if you do it right you can keep your office staffed for two hours LONGER every day…..a hidden benefit. It’s something that would take a few years to implement and adjust to – but now most big urban areas in America consider this idea commonplace. It’s something that is almost inevitable, because China’s cities simply CANNOT support the increasing numbers of cars and people trying to get to work/school at the same time – and expect them to get there in a timely manner. It’s at the point where productivity is starting to suffer – and this damages the overall economy for not only China…..but the WORLD.
Well I did it! I left my house at 6:40am and was at the office in 55 minutes! Though had I left a few minutes later the traffic would’ve been much slower on the expressway due to the bus lanes taking effect – I just narrowly missed this. So it looks like 6:30am is indeed the sweet spot – I’ll try for this tomorrow!
Gerald, I have colleagues and friends that do the same thing, they get to work at 7am but finish at 3/4.
I personally start at 8am and finish at 4pm and I avoid the majority of the rush, one of my colleagues works 10-7 as his car still has BJ plates but works in SH so he cant get on the elevated high ways until after a certain time.