Sustainable transportation in China
CUSTREC
Host organisation:
China Academy of Transport Sciences (CATS), Ministry of Communications, Beijing, P.R. China
Links:
The Centre’s website
The China Urban Sustainable Transport Research Center in Beijing is working to find solutions that are applicable at both technical and policy levels. The researchers hope that their results will even be useful in other developing countries.
A holistic perspective
Researchers at the Centre distinguish their work from previous research in China by applying an integrated approach to the challenges of providing sustainable transportation. “We want to achieve an urban transportation system that takes the different issues into account and integrates public transportation, land development and mobility management,” says Zhou Wei. The research spans several areas, including institutional arrangements, transportation and city planning, public transportation subsidy and financing, land-use planning, environment, information technology, traffic safety, and the social sciences. One of the Centre’s research areas – Benchmarking Efficiency of Urban Transport Systems in China – focuses on the current status of urban transportation in China and how systems can be developed in the context of China’s fast pace of economic development and urbanization.
Traditional traffic research in China has, until recently, been primarily focused on the balance between transportation supply and demand. “We are also looking at those questions, but we add aspects such as consumption patterns and resource availability, both of which have important implications for the design of future transportation systems,” says Zhou Wei.
One of the Centre’s research areas – Transport, Demand and Management – aims to reduce automobile travel demand or redistribute this demand in space or time, through policy measures and strategies for their implementation. Behavioral changes among Chinese urbanites are also important. The Centre hopes to influence people’s behavior and desires related to choice between transportation modes. “Sustainable transportation is about limiting resource use, and that requires not only technical solutions but even changes in consumption patterns. We try to influence the behavior of today’s Chinese through regulations and information campaigns. In that way, we can realize green consumption and green development,” says Zhou Wei.
One goal for the Center is to find and apply solutions that promote sustainable transportation in China at several levels. these include both technical solutions and methods for implementing them. Making this possible requires developing and implementing new policies.
Close to the government
The Center contributes to achieving this in part through its role in the China Academy of Transport Sciences at the Ministry of Transport and the China Council for International Cooperation on Environment and Development (CCICED), which is an advisory body to the Chinese government. The Vice Prime Minister chairs CCICED and the Minister of Environmental Protection is the Executive Vice Chairperson. This brings the researchers close to the government and enables them to provide recommendations regarding the design of a national policy for sustainable transportation in China.
The recent institutional reform of shifting urban transport responsibility from the former Ministry of Construction to the Ministry of Transport will create even better opportunities to provide useful research to China’s political leadership and will improve the links between CUSTReC and national and local officials in charge of urban transportation issues. Through the Forum on Transport Reform and Development in the Central Cities of China, the Center closely cooperates with decision makers and public employees in 36 important central cities in China. “That provides us with access to decision makers at both the national and regional levels, which makes our platform powerful. Our results can be used for implementation in different regions and cities, while at the same time we can support the government and government agencies on important policy issues,” says Zhou Wei. For example, the Center has cooperated with the Beijing Municipal Committee of Transportation on the research project, the Beijing Olympic Transport Demand Management, and a demo project with the Chengdu Municipal Committee of Transportation on institutional arrangements, urban-rural transport integration, transport-terminal planning, and parking.
International collaboration
CUSTReC collaborates with a number of international agencies, including the European Commission, the World Health Organization, the World Bank, and the German Aerospace Center. Through the CIVITAS Initiative, the Center will enable four to five Chinese cities annually to communicate directly with 36 European cities.
Transit-oriented development is the only option for the healthy development of Chinese cities, and integrating public transportation and land-use planning is prerequisite. CUSTReC collaborates with the Australasian Centre for Governance and Management of Urban Transport at the University of Melbourne on research about institutional perspectives, technology development and the application of Transit Oriented Development in China.
