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Public Acceptance of Policy Instruments: Evidence from Traffic-Related Smog Control Policies in Beijing

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Abstract

In 2008, approximately one third of Beijing’s severe smog pollution stemmed from its traffic sector. The local government addressed this problem by adopting a city-wide driving restriction policy. Starting from 2010, a congestion charge policy has been under discussion. While Beijing’s municipality has tried to bring traffic-related smog under control with these regulatory and market-based policies, there has been significant public opposition to both policies. Public acceptance is critical to successful policy making and implementation; however, the literature offers little insight into the key elements influencing public acceptance in the context of multiple policy choices. Based on a questionnaire survey of 285 respondents in Beijing, this paper adopts ordered logistic regression to explore the key factors influencing public acceptance of driving restriction and congestion charge policies. The results show that the public in Beijing prefers the driving restriction policy to the congestion charge policy. Political concerns, such as concerns relating to policy making transparency and perceived fairness, as well as economic concerns, such as concerns relating to car ownership and extra traffic cost, are essential determinants of public acceptance of such policies. Specifically, citizens who are more concerned about equity hold stronger negative opinions on the congestion charge policy.

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Data Availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available on request from the corresponding author. The data are not publicly available due to privacy or ethical restrictions.

Notes

  1. The driving restriction policy is renewed every year, although the policy content remains largely unchanged. A detailed policy description can be found in Appendix 2.

  2. “2013–2017 Beijing Clear Air Action Plan”: http://www.zhb.gov.cn/gzfw_13107/zcfg/hjjzc/dfhjjjzc/201605/t20160525_346665.shtml (in Chinese) and http://www.sustainabletransport.org/archives/1543 (in English).

    A congestion charge is imposed on most motor vehicles operating within the low-emission zone in Beijing. Additionally, the city government has set up charging hours during which the amount charged varies by time period. However, the congestion charge policy has not been implemented at the time of writing and is still under policy discussion. A detailed policy description can be found in Appendix 2.

  3. Source: http://auto.sina.com.cn/news/2008-09-04/2241407437.shtml.

  4. Source: http://finance.qq.com/a/20160603/012060.htm.

  5. Data source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/legal/2013-04/07/c_124545386.htm.

  6. Self-reported assessment of political trust has been widely adopted in Chinese studies [60, 74]. However, the use of a self-reported measure of political trust may encourage Chinese respondents to give biased answers. We will try to improve the measurement in future studies by employing benchmarking questions.

  7. Data source: Public Opinion Research Laboratory of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Study on the Smog Perception in China, 2013, http://www.doc88.com/p-9935368235717.html.

  8. Ibid.

  9. Data source: Data Center of National Environmental Protection Bureau. http://datacenter.mep.gov.cn.

    A day is defined as a “smog day” if the average PM2.5 concentration over 24 h is more than 75 µg/m3. Source: http://kjs.mep.gov.cn/hjbhbz/bzwb/dqhjbh/dqhjzlbz/201203/t20120302_224165.htm.

    Although the upper limit of the 24 h average PM2.5 concentration is 25 µg/m3, according to the standard of the WHO, we adopted the standard of the National Environmental Protection Bureau, considering the severe air pollution in China. Source: http://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/10665/69477/3/WHO_SDE_PHE_OEH_06.02_chi.pdf.

  10. Historical PM2.5 data in Beijing obtained from http://www.stateair.net/web/historical/1/1.html.

  11. Data source: http://www.sohu.com/a/158951937_361701. (In Chinese).

  12. We also realized that the use of an online survey might cause a certain level of sampling bias. For example, the online survey method excludes people who do not have access to the Internet via computer or cellphone.

  13. According to the pilot survey, the time taken to complete the online survey was normally more than 3 min. Thus, we dropped the subjects if they took less than 3 min to complete the online survey. In the pilot survey, we also checked the respondents’ understanding of each question to ensure that each question had been asked in a way that accurately expressed the original meaning of the question and was accurately understood by the respondents.

  14. From August to September 2016, 12 car owners were interviewed, including 7 men and 5 women aged from 28 to 45. They were working at government agencies, financial enterprises, middle schools or universities, Internet companies and others. Their homes and jobs were located at different distance away from the downtown of Beijing. Each interview lasted 45 to 60 min, mainly to understand their level of acceptance of driving restriction and congestion charge policies and the reasons for their responses.

  15. Source: http://www.cngold.com.cn/newtopic/20160727/2016nbjpjgzsds.html.

  16. We used a 5-point Likert scale to measure fairness, with 1 representing “not fair at all” and 5 representing “totally fair.”

  17. The negative spectrum indicates that the mean of a certain variable is less than 3.

  18. In our risk measurement, 1 meant “not risky at all” and 5 meant “extremely risky.”

  19. In our environmental attitude measurement, 1 represented “not important at all” and 5 represented “extremely important.”

  20. Willingness to pay was measured from 0, “not willing to pay at all,” to 5, “willing to pay more than 300 yuan per month for smog control.”

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Acknowledgements

Work reported in this paper was sponsored by National Natural Science Foundation of China (71874098), Humanities and Social Sciences Research of Ministry of Education (22YJC810015).

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  1. School of International Relations and Public Affairs, Fudan University, Shanghai, China

    Lingyi Zhou

  2. School of Public Policy and Management, Tsinghua University, No.30 Shuangqing Road, Haidian District, Beijing, 100084, People’s Republic of China

    Yixin Dai

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Appendices

Appendix 1 Variables definitions and measurements

Variables

Questions

Dependent variables

Public acceptance of driving restriction policy

I support the driving restriction policy in Beijing.

Public acceptance of congestion charge policy

I support the congestion charge policy in Beijing to alleviate air pollution.

Independent variables

Political trust

I think the process of making traffic-related smog control policy is open.

I think the process of making traffic-related smog control policy is transparent.

I think local government has strong will for smog control.

I think local government would like to consider opinions and suggestions from the public, the expert and the media.

I think my opinion is influential to local government’s traffic-related smog control policy design.

I think local government has enough instruments for smog control.

I think smog control instruments adopted by local government are effective.

I think local government is capable to solve smog problem in the near future.

I think local government has the capacity to improve its policy design in the long run for smog control.

Perceived fairness

I think each car owner should have the same obligation to obey driving restriction policy.

I think each car owner should pay the same amount of congestion charge.

I think cars with higher emissions should be restricted more.

I think cars with higher emissions should pay more congestion charge.

Knowledge of smog

Objective assessment on knowledge level, such as: “which pollutants is the main component of smog?”

Knowledge of smog control policy

Objective assessment on knowledge level of traffic-related smog control policies in Beijing, such as: “What are the days of the week to implement driving restriction?”

Perceived risk

Smog may create health hazards.

Smog may create other uncertain hazards.

Concern about traffic inconvenience

Traffic control will bring travel inconvenience to people’s daily life.

Control variables

Pro-environmental attitude

I take environment protection as an important issue.

WTP

How much money are you willing to pay for smog control per month?

Appendix 2 Policy characteristics of driving restriction and congestion charge instruments

Policy instrument

Policy type

Launch date (year)

Initiated agency

Policy Goal/Content

Driving restriction

Regulation

2008, renewed every year

People’s Government of Beijing Municipality

Policy goal:

Alleviate air pollution

Policy content:

One-day-a-week driving licensing scheme from 7:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. inside but excluding the 5th ring road; odd-even number driving restriction scheme that uses the odd and even number of the date to determine the plate number of the vehicle allowed to be driven on that day is adopted on severe smog days.

Congestion charge

Market-based

Proposed in 2013, still under policy discussion

People’s Government of Beijing Municipality Beijing Municipal Commission of Transportation, Beijing Municipal Commission of Development and Reform Beijing Municipal Environmental Protection Bureau

Policy goal:

Alleviate traffic congestion and air pollution

Policy content:

A fee charged on most motor vehicles operating within the Low Emission Area in central Beijing. Operating hours as well as charging amount are still under discussion.

  1. Source: “2016 Beijing Driving Restriction on the Peak Hours during Weekdays” and “the 2013–2017 Beijing Clear Air Action Plan”

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Zhou, L., Dai, Y. Public Acceptance of Policy Instruments: Evidence from Traffic-Related Smog Control Policies in Beijing. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-023-09851-5

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