Abstract
Fueled by unprecedented economic growth, Beijing, China, has been undergoing rapid urbanization and motorization over the last 30 years. Like other big cities, Beijing has struggled with traffic congestion problems for a long time. The first part of this paper introduces urban development patterns of Beijing. It then carefully reviews Beijing’s historical and recent congestion mitigation measures, highlighting the unique characteristics of each of the city’s development stage. However, as historic records show, mere infrastructure expansion does not ease congestion. Scientific and comprehensive travel demand management (TDM) measures are required. Although many achievements have been made in the course of implementing comprehensive measures, several problems have affected the whole development situation of urban public transportation in Beijing, such as uncoordinated transportation and urban development, low-quality public transportation services, weak TDM measures, and shrinking green travel. Finally, recently issued guidance policies are introduced for future transportation management in fields like public transportation development, private vehicle control, and non-motorized transportation promotion. This paper concludes with Beijing’s experience in developing transportation systems and offers advice to draft the city’s future development strategy, which also inspires other mega cities that are undergoing rapid urbanization as well.
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Notes
The term “city central area” is often used in Beijing city planning documents. It refers to the district that covers all the area within the Fifth Ring Road and part of the area between the fifth ring road and the sixth ring road.
2Highly congested area here refers to the area within the Third Ring Road, the CBD area, Yansha Business District, Zhongguancun Science & Technology Zone, and Cuiwei Commercial District.
TPI is calculated based on floating car data and takes four elements into consideration—congested road-length ratio, congested time duration, congested road count, and road network reliability. TPI ranges from 0 to 10 and is divided into five levels. TPI 0 to TPI 2 indicates very smooth traffic; TPI 2to TPI 4 (2 < TPI≦4) indicates smooth traffic; TPI 4 to TPI 6 (4 < TPI≦6) indicates light congested traffic; TPI 6 to TPI 8 (6 < TPI≦8) indicates moderate congested traffic; TPI 8 to TPI 10 (8 < TPI≦10) indicates severely congested traffic.
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Acknowledgments
We are grateful to Dr. Zhigao Wang from the Energy Foundation China for his suggestions. I also thank the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport for data assistance. Any remaining errors in the paper are our own.
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Guo, J., Sun, M., Wang, T. et al. Transportation development and congestion mitigation measures of Beijing, China. Mitig Adapt Strateg Glob Change 20, 651–663 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-014-9617-9
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11027-014-9617-9