Diagnosis on traffic congestion in Beijing

People always associate Beijing with the "capital of traffic congestion."

The government departments have been taking measures to solve the problem, but an online survey conducted by Beijing Transportation Research Center shows that three-quarter Internet users are pessimistic about the traffic condition in 2013.

Problem 1: Parking on roads, too many construction and road maintenance

Beijing Municipal Traffic Commission announced at the end of November 2012 that the number of registered cars in Beijing has exceeded 5 million. Although the increasing rate has declined by 78 percent compared with 2011, it is still much higher than other international cities.

The rapid increase in the number of motor vehicles had made Beijing road network difficult to bear a few years ago.

It only spent two years and seven months for the number of registered motor vehicles in Beijing to increase from 3 million to 4 million, while Tokyo took as long as 12 years to complete the change.

The phenomenon of more cars but fewer roads had appeared at least in 2003. Beijing Traffic Management Bureau had announced that year that over 90 percent of roads in Beijing had been saturated or super-saturated in the morning and evening peak hours.

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