With the rapid growth of vehicle populations, Chinese cities are facing parking challenges. In the past, cities tended to solve parking problems simply by increasing supply, for example, by converting more curb lanes and sidewalks into parking spaces, by subsidizing the construction of municipal parking facilities and by increasing the number of parking spaces required in new development. In recent years, many cities have started to apply a new parking-planning paradigm to enhance efficient parking management. Parking management was seen as an important TDM (Transportation Demand Management) instrument to mitigate urban traffic congestion and to reduce GHG emissions. Against this background, from June 19 to 23, the “Sino-German Cooperation on Low Carbon Transport” project (CLCT) and the “Sustainable Urban Transport Program” (SUTP) jointly organized a parking management training course for the city of Tianjin and the city of Qingdao. Both cities are facing escalating parking problems and a lack of…
Air pollution, congestion, traffic accidents – the list of negative effects of the constantly growing volume of vehicle traffic in Beijing is long. Despite several policies that restrict vehicle registration and usage, between 2010 and 2014 alone the number of private passenger cars in the Chinese capital Beijing grew from 4.5 to 5.6 million vehicles. This makes transport also a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. But during the same time the vehicle fleet growth rate also lowered from ten to three percent annually demonstrating some first success of urban transport policies in Beijing. One promising approach to reduce emissions is transport demand management (TDM) attempting to control demand through measures to reduce the need to travel by car (avoid) and move car drivers to sustainable modes (shift). It is an integral part of sustainable urban transport strategies and is complementary to better urban planning and clean vehicles. With the…
As a consequence of rapid urbanisation and motorisation over the last decades, most of China’s major cities are facing an unprecedented growth in private car ownership. This development poses a challenge to the city authorities and planners, as it tremendously impacts on traffic congestion, air quality, road safety, urban space consumption and parking demand in Chinese megacities and metropolitan areas. To address these problems, cities are carrying out several different urban transport policies such as car ownership restrictions and driving bans for private vehicles. Nevertheless, most cities underestimate the positive effect of a well-managed on-street parking system within the cityscapes. GIZ China’s Sustainable Transport Programme had the opportunity to interview Dr. Paul Barter – a renowned researcher, policy advisor and trainer at Reinventing Transport and adjunct professor at Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, National University of Singapore. Dr. Barter has over 20 years of research experience in urban…
With the Clean Air Action Plan of 2013 Beijing started the discussion on introducing congestion charging to reduce traffic volume, relieve congestion and subsequently transport related air pollution. With the support of GIZ, the Beijing Transportation Research Centre modelled the impact of different congestion charging policy schemes. While Beijing is still discussing the feasibility of congestion charging, few prominent cities around the world have implemented it. Stockholm, London, Singapore, Milan are some of the cities that are currently operating a congestion charging scheme as an economic instrument to reduce congestion and its detrimental effects. Forty years after its first implementation, congestion charging remains a highly underused policy, even if implemented policies have shown to be highly successful. The international experts involved in assessing the congestion charging policy for Beijing have summarised their experience with congestion charging in a policy guide. The guide attempts to address the two main reasons why…
Car owners all over the world know the frustration that parking can cause, but in China where illegal parking is common this frustration extends to other transport users as cars take over sidewalks, pedestrian squares, bike lanes, and even bus stops. With the number of private vehicles growing from less than 10 million in 2002 to over 88 million in 2012, the number of drivers and demand for good parking spaces continue to grow. In China parking management systems have been unable to keep up, leading to chaotic parking situations which cause congestion, increase air pollution and decrease the economic efficiency of the city. Improving the parking management system is a challenging task that Chinese cities have little experience with and an area where GIZ is able to offer its expertise. Working with Beijing and Shenzhen, GIZ has helped to address the short term need for available parking spaces to…
Uncontrolled and illegal parking is facing increasing discomfort by local authorities in the city of Shenzhen. An annually rising car ownership of 15%, increasing congestion, and an average speed of 26 km/h on inner urban streets in 2013 affirmed Shenzhen Municipal Commission of Transport to take action. To “clean up” Shenzhen’s roads and not further reduce capacity of streets local authorities announced the introduction of parking management policy consisting of two parts: an on-street and an off-street parking fee. The new parking policy will become effective on July 1st, 2014. For the first implementation phase four pilot areas were selected representing a mix of residential, business and commercial areas – so called Type 1 Areas. a) In a first step, an on-street parking fee of 5 CNY for the first 30 minutes and an additionally 10 CNY for every following 30 minutes will be levied during most hours of the…
Urban density is one of the most discussed concepts in the history of urban design and city planning. It is the first out of ten principles for sustainable urban transport, which are summarised in our new PREZI based on the approach of “avoid-shift-improve”. During the 19th century urban density was synonymous with narrow, unhygienic housing and living conditions. In the 1930s modernists accused it of promoting social and political unrest. Today, the term urbanity connotes to civic ideals such as smooth and literate and socially capable. From the sixties onwards these ideals became more dominant in public discussion. In 1989 an influential study by Newman and Kenworthy compared 32 cities across the world. The main finding that denser cities have lower car use than sprawling cities is largely accepted by planners today. Planning dense, walkable cities became a new paradigm in city planning: Short distances encourage social inclusion and promote…
With the Chinese New Year festival starting tomorrow Beijing looks back on the year of the snake. In 2013 transport has been an important topic in Beijing. Citizens and policy makers discussed new ideas how to tackle transport-related problems since traffic congestion and air pollution remain prevailing issues. As 2013 started with hazardous smog for consecutive days, echoing in headlines across the world, special attention was given to measures handling the basic course. At the top, Beijing’s five-year Clean Air Action Plan (2013-2017) was unveiled in September 2013. Transport-related policies are a key element of the plan. Beijing’s authorities will continue their traffic restricting policies as well as advance the promotion of vehicle fuel efficiency and environmental performance. The plan states 84 specific tasks with more than 30 responsible bodies involved to clear up the city’s sky. Transport-related measures that were discussed and implemented in Beijing in 2013 comprise a broad…
