Beijing Urban Transport Problems And Research

As the urban economy and construction rapidly grow, urban traffic problems become serious increasingly. During the progression of urbanization, modernization and development of automobile industry, frequent use of car caused great traffic expansion due to the car's specific advantage. At present, the country is up against severe situation in urban traffic control, broadening road which was widely used in the past proved not enough to solve problems. As famous scholar Anthony Downs outlined in his landmark book Stuck In Traffic, adding capacity has three unintended consequences: Drivers shift from alternative routes and begin to use the new, wider highway. Motorists who previously drove at off-peak time go back to driving at rush hour. And people using transit opt to commute by their car. As a result, traffic will move much faster at first during rush hour but pretty soon the word gets out, and drivers will converge on the expanded route and once again cars will move at a crawl. By now, many cities have begun to solve problems through improving the traffic control capability. In Beijing, the automobile population has exceeded 3.6 million as of April 1^st, 2009, among which are over 2.4 million private cars. Although the government has implemented some policies to restrict the use of private cars and it does take effect for some time, as the growth of automobiles' absolute number, the effect is offset. According to Beijing's present traffic situation, if the government wants to solve problems fundamentally, long-term and short-term measures must be taken. As for long-term measures, the government must strategically combine the urban traffic plan with urban plan and study traffic control measures in advance. As for short-term measures, the government must investigate and analyze present road condition, vehicle status and travel intensity, use and distribute the existing resources more efficiently, to reduce the traffic problems and then basically improve the traffic situation combined with long-term measures. Aiming at promoting the reform on national trafffic system, using the economic and administrative theory, the article systematically summarizes Beijing's traffic status and the factors that affect urban traffic. Putting the traffic status questionary and its analysis as emphasis of traffic control, drawing lessons from advanced experience in modernized countries, such as the United States, Britain and Japan, combining the achievements of domestic scholars and experts, the article also systematically elaborates the basic trend and principle of traffic control, and puts forward more detailed traffic control measures, which can meet the requirement of sustainable traffic development. The article includes many traffic control measures which have generally practicable value. This will help people correctly understand the traffic control measures, and play a referenced role in urban traffic control. Especially in promoting the development of public transport, the article puts forward the ideas of setting up seamless special road for buses and improving conditions of bus stations, which are not mentioned by other scholars and may help effectively realize the buses' preferential status. The ideas are worth discussing and researching. In a word, by introducing traffic control plan and specific measures, the article tries to increase the traffic control efficiency, keep the traffic clear, meet the requirement of modern scientific development and economic globalization, make the country's traffic control system keep up with the world and finally set up a harmonious, flexible and efficient traffic control system. Therefore, the study in this article is significant both in theory and practice.