01515444

Component

https://doi.org/10.3141/2451-08

With rapid growth in urbanization and motorization, many Chinese megacities are suffering severe traffic congestion and air pollution. To alleviate this worsening situation, some megacities in China have implemented a license quota system (an intervention) to limit car ownership. In this paper, different license allocation schemes are presented: the lottery system in Beijing, the auction system in Shanghai, and the hybrid system in Guangzhou. The practices in Chinese cities are compared with those in Singapore and Hong Kong, China, which provide representative examples of car ownership interventions throughout the world. In addition, the possible impacts and problems of these three types of allocation methods are analyzed. The result shows that intervention policies play a significant role in controlling rapid motorization in megacities that are experiencing a transformation from low to middle-high income. Even though the restraints cannot resolve traffic congestion, the restraints slow the motorization process and provide longer time for development of high-quality public transit systems. Moreover, both fairness and effectiveness should be taken into account when strong administrative interventions are being implemented. The auction system would result in an unacceptably high bidding price, while the lottery system might stimulate unnecessary demand and provide incentives for people to purchase a car before the lottery. Therefore, the hybrid system of an auction combined with a lottery seems to be a better choice. In addition, complementary policies that restrain car usage and improve door-to-door public transit are strongly recommended in the long run.

01553131

14-4100

English

pp 68–76

2014

Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board

9780309295437

Print

Figures (5) ; References (34) ; Tables (3)

Air pollution; Automobile ownership; Developing countries; Large cities; Policy; Public transit; Regulation; Traffic congestion; Traffic control; Urbanization

Beijing (China); China; Guangzhou (China); Hong Kong (China); Shanghai (China); Singapore

Highways; Planning and Forecasting; Policy; Public Transportation; Vehicles and Equipment; I90: Vehicles

TRIS, TRB, ATRI

Jan 27 2014 3:25PM

• Advancing Urban Mobility with National Programs: Review of Colombia’s National Urban Transport Policy
• Analysis of Traffic Injury Severity in Dhaka, Bangladesh
• Automobility in Brazil, Russia, India, and China: Quo Vadis?
• Capitalization Effects of Rail Transit and Bus Rapid Transit on Residential Property Values in a Booming Economy: Evidence from Beijing
• Challenges of Implementing à la Mode Transport Projects: Case Studies of Bus Rapid Transit and Cable Cars in Colombia
• Classification of Rural Residents on the Basis of Activity Travel Characteristics: Case Study of Villages in Iran
• Constructing an Optimal Orthogonal Choice Design with Alternative-Specific Attributes for Stated Choice Experiments
• Development of a Safety Assessment Tool for Long-Span Bridges: Case Study of Sutong Bridge in China
• Evaluating Improvements in Bus Rapid Transit in Mexico City, Mexico: How Feasible Is It to Improve a Consolidated System?
• Evaluation of Mobility Performance with Toll Data for Jingshen Expressway in China
• Influence of Accessibility to Emergency Medical Services on Fatality Rate in Hokkaido, Japan
• Joint Disaggregate Modeling of Car and Motorcycle Ownership: Case Study of Bogotá, Colombia
• Reverification of an Activity-Based Microsimulation of Travel Demand During a Transition in the Transportation Environment in Jakarta, Indonesia
• Shifting Discourse About Transit-Oriented Development in Mumbai, India: From Intensifying Built-Up Area to Managing Population Density
• Social Welfare Maximization of Multimodal Transportation: Theory, Metamodel, and Application to Tianjin Ecocity, China
• Transport Workers’ Perspective on Indigenous Transport and Climate Change Adaptation