From Private Cars to Public Bikes, Chinese Transport System at A Glance
Traffic? Oh it is traffic again! Traffic is considered tightly associated with the economic and social development of a country. China is considered as the most rapid developing countries in the world now while its traffic structure is simultaneously developing in a different pace. The economic growth has led to significant increases in carbon-intense energy consumption, with potentially disastrous impacts on the global environment. As predicted, severe traffic problems keep coming up in urban areas, such as congestion issue, environment pollution, driving safety and sharing of parking space. However, thanks to the quick economic development, Chinese people are getting richer and more eager to own private cars. With sufficient money in hand, the car ownership index is constantly growing. The Chinese government takes the situation as a very good catalyst to boost economic development while neglecting the fact that the vehicle market has been saturated for a long time. Municipal government then decides to enforce regulations on controlling the steep growth of private car ownership. To discover further about the controversial issue of ownership in different urban areas, this article will show example of how mega cities in China like Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou put the policy on stage, and hopefully to share some insights on the whole system of controlling ownership through comparison between the distinct methods of each city. Then the introduction to one of the most eco-friendly transportation — the bike sharing system, will give basic analysis on how it becomes the good complement of current traffic structure in general.
Shanghai’s License Plate Auction System
Shanghai’s private car license auction began in 1986, but the system was truly implemented in 1992. To solve the traffic congestion problem, the government started to put up auctions for new cars in Shanghai and encouraged the citizens to fully take part in the system to reduce car ownership amount. There are three main stages in the evolution of this system. There was a reservation price at first but in 2000 it changed to no reservation price at all. There was an unbalanced distribution between imported cars and domestic cars but in 2003 this situation changed to equal distribution. The method of the auction has been modified and finally in 2008, it was decided to be an open auction through the web and specific hotlines.
The Urban Transportation and Port Management Bureau of Shanghai designates Shanghai International Auction Company to implement the auction. It is not that easy to get into the auction as you might suppose. First, you must meet the qualification of becoming a bidder and hold relevant documents to prove your eligibility. Then you have to carefully choose a specific month and date you want to do the bidding. Normally it is 7 days before each month’s third Saturday and is restricted from 9: 00–16: 00. Next step, you pay a 2000 RMB margin fee to ensure yourself getting into the auction (sounds like a ticket fee huh?). Yes, and you have many forms to fill out. One is “Passenger Quota Bid Auction Registration Form”, on which you have to get a stamped notary. Later you have to apply for “Bid Card Tender Auction” after registration, and from that moment you receive your passwords, login name and many special documents for online bidding. The bidding process will last nearly one and a half hours: the initial process for 60 minutes and then 30 minutes for modifying prices. There will be six-month effectiveness for your new “Bid Card” from the date of registration. If unfortunately, your tender is unsuccessful, you have to wait for other rounds during the following months but without re-registration. The limit of using the same “Bid Card” with the same ownership is three times. If your card expired after half a year or you exceeded the restriction of three-time use, then you need to go over all the procedures above again to re-apply.
Since the auction system is only available to all the prospected car owners once a month, the quota for each month is constantly growing but never decreasing. According to this chart above, we could see the number of bidders increase largely in recent years. It is obvious to see how expensive it is to register for one single vehicle in Shanghai. Chinese people are extremely flexible when facing a competitive situation like this. There are more and more Shanghai citizens choose to register and buy cars in other provinces since the procedure is much more simple and the registration fee is much cheaper. Obviously, the government hates to see this, thus, they release a series of regulations to control this kind of behavior. “Peak Hour Control” is one example of the regulations. During rush hours in the morning like 7:30 a.m. to 9:30 a.m., and in the afternoon like 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m., non-local license vehicles are not allowed to enter either the main roads or the expressways. Hopefully, to control the annual growth of car ownership and simultaneously the Shanghai-based car plate, the government also fines non-local vehicles harshly once the cars appear in the elevated approaches.
Due to the limited amount of only a few thousand quotas per month, the plate value has priced from its original 140rmb to today’s 90000rmb, even higher than the gold price. The auction system is so controversial itself, that many voices are yelling to cancel the auction. Early in 2004, Assistant Minister of Commerce Huang Hai criticized the system in public, pointing out its violation of “The People’s Republic of China on Road Traffic Safety Law.” Twice in the National People’s Congress (NPC), the deputies also actively proposed to cancel the license auction. In this regard, the Shanghai municipal government spokesman said on many occasions, that the auction system is only a transitory stage for the whole transportation plan. Transport and Port Bureau and other departments have also made it clear that the city will put on an appropriate and steady increase in the total amount of motor vehicles, with a detailed study of alternative solutions to the existing quota auction. They promised to come up with new solutions in 2012, which seems very ironic when we look back at those comments today.
Beijing’s License Plate Lottery System
Beijing came online with its vehicle license application website, namely the famous “license-plate lottery (Yao Hao)”, starting from midnight on January 1st, 2011. Meng Qiao, deputy director of Beijing Municipal Committee of Transportation first explained the rule of this lottery system. According to “Small Passenger Cars Regulation in Beijing Interim Provisions”, Beijing began to implement the quota management system to control private car growth rate. With the amount of 24 million plates per year, any individual who wants to get a car to have to go through the lottery procedure.
There are two ways to apply for the vehicle configuration, one is through the designated website, the other is through the 16 county government departments’ open windows. Online registration is the more popular and highly recommended approach since lining up in front of the windows might be a waste of time. The computer will give the lottery index in random. The government invited top experts in mathematical and scientific fields to solicit comments, wanting to design the system technically capable of fairness. One simple example could explain the system: You apply online on January 1st, 2011, and the computer would generate an application code for you but only implies you can take part in this term’s lottery. Before the 8th day of each month, you need to collect all the required information and hand them to the relevant department. Once you passed the audit review, you will receive one efficient code representing your validity of joining the lottery for this month. On each month’s 25th day, the system will announce the codes that finally become available for purchasing one plate. Anyone who fails to log in before the 8th day of the month will be assigned to join the next round of verification in the following month.
Under three situations, it is mandatory to go through the lottery procedure. The first is when one individual wants to buy a new car, the second is when one individual wants to buy a secondhand car, the third is when one individual wants to buy a car plate for others. Any vehicle from outside Beijing that wants to turn the card plate to Beijing local plate “identity”, has to go through the system, too. According to the data, Beijing implemented the lottery system in the first month and had received applications with more than 21 million people, which is even close to the total number of annual quota applications. Previously discussed, the municipal government decided to only distribute 20000 of quota per month. Per this provision, the data indicated that only one of twelve people could truly get the available verification of buying a car plate in a single month. One good testing example for the system is the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games when the cars could only drive on roads based on their even/odd plate number. Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday only even number car could drive. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday only odd number car could drive. The system then modified to allow driving based on the plate’s last digit, in other words, the car has to stay at home one specific day each week. There are three vital factors of the lottery system:
1. The quota for annual vehicle growth and its structure are set according to an analysis of road capacity, environmental sustainability, and projected demand;
2. Currently, a monthly quota is set at 20,000, with 88% to individuals, 10% to companies and other organizations, and the remaining 2% to operators of transportation services;
3. Companies and individuals go through separate lottery processes to get their rights to own. This right is non-transferable and effective for six months.
Based on the study of the data, private vehicles’ absolute number does not necessarily decrease largely under the system. Beijing has gradually reinforced different regulations aimed at reducing the amount of car ownership, controlling congestion and upgrading to constructions of roads and expressways. Compared to non-market mechanisms, market-based mechanisms have often been advocated by economists as a better approach to allocating scarce public resources, on grounds of economic efficiency and revenue generation. Moreover, subordinate methods are implemented constantly, such as the rising fees for parking, more available routes for public transportation and encouragements on riding bikes more frequently. The government firmly believes the combination of various approaches would contribute to the progress of the congestion issue. Whether the lottery system or the plate last-digit policy will be put in the long or short term, its effectiveness will be examined undoubtedly in the following years.
Guangzhou’s License Plate Hybrid System
Guangzhou is the third city to implement regulations on vehicles, started its control on July 1st, 2012. New and old vehicles all need to register by individuals, and the quota is distributed in a combination of lottery and auction system. It was enforced as a testing system for only one year. On 1 July 2013, the Guangzhou government announced that the policy became a long term regulation, effective until July 2018. 120,000 city’s annual new car registration quota will be allocated through this hybrid procedure, and 60000 plates will be put into the lottery while the other half of 60000 plates go to auction. Borrowing experiences from both Shanghai and Beijing, Guangzhou targets at easing the traffic jams.
Director of the Guangzhou commission of transport, Xian Weixiong, highly praised this hybrid system for its efficiency and fairness. In his opinion, while the lottery system gives everyone an equal chance to win a plate, the auction system helps to raise funds for developing Guangzhou’s public transportation, obviously, it is one win-win model. With 10000 new plates given out since July 2012, and allocated evenly with 5000 plates for lottery and 5000 plates for auction, the combination system not only balanced the pressure of the two former policy but also emerged new spirit to encourage the citizens of buying cars rationally. Director of the Institute of Modernization Strategies under the Guangdong Academy of Social Sciences, Zheng Fenming, however, suggested that there should be an even higher auction price for the plate to contain the eagerness of buying new cars. In the long term, only in this way can the number of vehicles be controlled to avoid the congestion problem. The tension he mentioned is that the government should not be putting too many efforts into private cars system, but ought to be improving the public traffic facilities in a sense. Zheng urged the city to collect more congestion fees and further to increase parking fees in busy areas to help reduce the number of vehicles on its roads. Member of the Guangzhou Committee of the Chinese People’s Political and Consultative Conference, Han Zhipeng, opposed the policy for its unfair distribution between lottery and auction (50–50 distribution). He assumed that the rich have to pay even higher for their auction for one car plate, which indicated that there should be more quota putting into the lottery than the auction, namely, 70 percent for lottery and the other 30 percent for auction would be the best distribution. Han’s main idea is to reduce private car amounts rather than rise the money of buying the plate.
According to data from the local traffic police, Guangzhou — which has a population of more than 16 million — had more than 2.4 million vehicles registered by the end of May 2012. An average of 3.3 cars has to compete for or share a parking place due to a shortage of parking places. Besides the hybrid system of lottery and auction, Guangzhou’s regulation on cars has one very special feature — the time limit on registration of vehicles. Owners with cars registered before June 30 in 2012 should re-register the old license in 10 years, but as many times as wished after July 1st, 2012. And owners registered after this date will need to wait for a while. The good news is once the 10-year plate gets expired, owners could easily update it with simple procedures. This puts everyone on equal footing in terms of the right to drive.
Public Bike Sharing System
A good way to keep healthy, economically-effective and eco-friendly, riding bicycles is coming to trend as a very popular form of transportation in recent years. It is not only an enjoyable exercise for people but also is a good complement to public transportation structure. In urban areas in China, different cities put the various new bike-sharing system into practice, with a continuously impressive effect on both social life and environmental protection. To examine the distinct characteristics and some common features of the bike systems, we will discover how China has been suffering from the high density of population and city buildings. The question is how much short-term pain will China endure, in the form of slower growth and higher costs, to achieve a more balanced and sustainable economy. Largely dependency on private vehicle usage, the new form of bicycle system will provide numerous potential for the long-term green development for public transportation.
Like some other countries, China is greatly suffered from high carbon emissions, high levels of air pollution and expensive demand for fuel resources, all these negative consequences. In the last century, Chinese people had developed the history of riding bikes but now it is the right time to return to the trend. Under the contemporary context, riding bicycles is no longer the basic need for transportation but becoming the most rational and eco-friendly approach.
This history shows three distinct stages of bicycle use in China, as follows:
1. The early-stage from the 1950s to the end of the 1970s. The take-up in bicycle use was initially very slow but it gradually started to become part of people’s daily life as a means of transportation.
2. From the 1980s to the end of the last century saw rapid growth in usage. By the end of this stage, there were 400 million bicycles in use throughout China. 3. From the start of the 21st century to the present day saw a period of relative decline, with motorized vehicles taking the place of bicycles. Despite this trend, the serious concerns relating to transportation, energy consumption, and environmental pollution saw concerted efforts to encourage Chinese citizens to opt to travel by bicycle as a green and sustainable form of transportation.
Since the bike-sharing system is supposed to be a very good complement to current traffic structure, megacities like Shanghai, Beijing, Guangzhou have all started this kind of system to hopefully help relieve with the congestion problem. Below is the chart showing good analysis of factors such as the population, bicycle ownership and the level of user development.
Hangzhou is the best representative of China’s domestic bike-sharing system. In the early stage of the bike-sharing system, the government provided 150 million RMB start-up funds and 270 million RMB worth of subsidized loans to expedite the establishment of the system. The government also required many operators to be obliged on advertising in different service spots. The whole system is the mighty combination of several single operating platforms, including scheduling and re-scheduling models, information databases, monitoring systems, and social online notifications. Furthermore, the municipal deputies spent efforts on designing the system, not only in fees charging and rules set, but also in service slots picking and bicycle selecting. To put the system better engagement with the local geographical characteristics (Di Fang Te Se), the designers also take the living habits of local citizens into consideration.
A bit of Conclusion
The transportation system is a very important element in one country’s social-economic system. There might be high pressure on the transportation system itself, especially in rapidly developing countries like China. The large demand for better and more efficient transport is based on many reasons, the quick urbanizations, big amount of people migrating from countryside to urban areas, unbalanced economic growth, polluted industrialization and the high density of population. People’s desire and pure wishes for a higher standard of living and the leisure of enjoying the policies’ benefits, both are also the pushing efforts for the improved transportation system. It is true that this age of technology when nowadays we have different forms of transportation such as railways, BRT, airports, expressways, and metro, etc. Thanks to the updating technologies, government policies are subjected to modify as well.
Distributing more quota or putting a lottery/auction system could not be still effective in the long run, the key point is to shift the focus to public transportation. In the meantime, developing flexible and all-round transport public services will help create a better blueprint for future transport design. According to environmental research analyst Heshuang Zeng’s report on “China Transportation Briefing: 5 Trends to Watch in China’s Urban Transport in 2013”, he pointed out the five trends are urban rail expansion, battling with air pollution, private car ban, biking renaissance, and multi-modal integration. Multi-faceted policies were applied to practical use in big cities in China, and as we look back at the five hypothesis trends today, we have fortunately accomplished 80% of the plan. Though there would still be continuously changing regulations coming out of the stage, the current development of the whole transportation system has given us comfort and courage to foresee plans with a determined heart and never-ending endeavor.
