China's Road Transport Study On Sustainable Development

Humanity stands at a defining moment in history, and we must take the road of sustainable development. Sustainable development requires taking longer-term perspectives, integrating local and regional effects of global change into the development process.Highway transportation is the basic and infrastructural industry of national economy and plays an important role in the economic and social development of the country. With the rapid development of national economy and continually improved living standard of the people, the demand of the public for highway transportation becomes more and more robust. Our country is on the road to industrialization, highway transportation faces unprecedented opportunities and grave challenges. Since the founding of the People's Republic of China, especially after the introduction of the opening up and reform policy, highway transportation has made significant progress. However, the gap between the increasing demand for travel and shortage of the effective supply of highway transportation capacity is still the main problem facing the development of highway transportation. And this main problem calls for an urgent solution by means of an innovative mode of development. Therefore, given the complex and multi-faceted nature of the issue, it is very significant for the attainment of the coordinated development between highway transportation and economic, social, environmental development and resource conservation and for meeting the demand of economic and social development that objective analysis be made into the current situation of our country's highway transportation, the scientific mode of development for highway transportation be explored and relevant policies and measures for the sustainable development of highway transportation be made.It is a significant problem concerned with transportation industry's harmonious and fast development in our country that form a modern highway transportation system which accord with the rules of sustainable development and the conditions of our country, and also is a problem which emphasize not only theory but also practice. The progressive development of highway transportation still faces many contradictions and problems, which need to be urgently solved, although the pattern of sustainable development based on the background of sustainable development is well accepted by everybody.How to ensure the sustainable development of highway transportation calls for a closer look. As all the relevant researches are mainly focused on the concepts, notions and policies, moreover, they lacks the effective tool for the evaluation of the sustainable development of highway transportation, they cannot provide the necessary guidance for the sustainable development of highway transportation of our country. This paper is intended to elucidate the achievements and major problems concerning highway transportation industry from the perspective of historic evolvement and status of China's road transport industry; to evaluate in a holistic approach the overall level of the sustainable development of our country's highway transportation; to analyze the key factors underlying the sustainable development of our country's highway transportation by the tool of systems analysis; to put forward the definition, contents and mode of sustainable development of highway transportation by the theory of sustainable development; to establish the evaluation indicator system for the sustainable development of highway transportation by the method of tiered analysis and to put to trial the aforementioned evaluation indicator system in the sustainable development of highway transportation in a given region. On the basis of the systematic analysis, policy suggestions are made to promote the sustainable development of highway transportation for the reference of the relevant government agencies.