Beijing considers congestion charge

According to Chinese website Xinhua, Beijing is likely to trial a congestion charge in a bid to address its congestion and air quality. Close to 5.6 million vehicles vie for space on Beijing's roads and vehicle emissions account for 31 per cent of the city's smog sources, according to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau.
December 3, 2015 Read time: 2 mins

According to Chinese website Xinhua, Beijing is likely to trial a congestion charge in a bid to address its congestion and air quality.

Close to 5.6 million vehicles vie for space on Beijing's roads and vehicle emissions account for 31 per cent of the city's smog sources, according to the Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau.

Beijing topped the traffic congestion list of 45 major domestic cities in the second quarter of 2015, and the frequent use of ride-hailing services was cited in a report as a major reason. Commuters in Beijing spent on average 32 minutes per hour in traffic jams while travelling during rush hours, according to a report by AutoNavi Software. Rush hour congestion was 36.4 per cent higher in July than the previous year.

"We are looking into the possibility of a congestion fee in certain areas," said Zhou Zhengyu, director of Beijing transport commission.

Beijing will further tighten its traffic controls and deliberate policies that will encourage companies to adopt different working hours, Zhou said.

The city has rolled out various policies to address air quality and congestion, such as restricting vehicles from using the roads on one out of five weekdays based upon the vehicle’s last license plate digits.

Air Quality & Weather Systems Urban Traffic Control Charging, Tolling & RUC

Related Content

  • Widest bridge in the world Port Mann open in Vancouver
    April 25, 2013
    Port Mann Bridge, designed to growing regional congestion and improve the movement of people, goods and transit throughout greater Vancouver, is now open for business. The widest bridge in the world, the Port Mann Bridge located in the metro Vancouver area, in British Columbia, Canada, features an Open Road Tolling (ORT) system, also called All Electronic Tolling (AET), which will ultimately cross all 10 lanes of traffic.
    Read More
  • Programming a smoother commute
    January 18, 2013
    Work being carried out by the University of Toronto’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Centre could have a beneficial effect on the city’s congestion problems. Says Professor Baher Abdulhai of the Centre, "Everybody realises that we have a big congestion problem in Toronto and the scarier part is that it's getting worse, exponentially." One of the solutions he's working on is smarter traffic lights using artificial intelligence to control the flow of traffic. "Each traffic light would learn how to time i
    Read More
  • Singapore introduces new vehicle emissions scheme
    March 8, 2017
    In an effort to improve air quality, Singapore is to introduce the Vehicular Emissions Scheme (VES) to replace the Carbon Emissions-Based Vehicle Scheme (CEVS) for all new cars, taxis and newly imported used cars with effect from 1 January 2018. The new scheme will cover four more pollutants to reduce harmful vehicle emissions and will be applicable for all cars and taxis registered from 1 January 2018 to 31 December 2019. The VES rebate or surcharge for a car or taxi will be determined by its worst-perf
    Read More
  • Study calls Inrix off-street parking the ‘clear winner’ in US and Europe
    January 21, 2016
    An independent off-street parking benchmark study carried out by automotive technology research firm SBD has concluded that ParkMe, an Inrix company, beat Parkopedia in data accuracy across the key attribute categories in five cities in the US and Germany. According to the study, overall, ParkMe was 12 per cent more accurate than Parkopedia across a set of core attributes that are essential to automakers for customer satisfaction. Most important, ParkMe was 23 per cent more accurate providing the precise
    Read More

Highlighted Content