Shanghai to ban non-city cars in heavily congested areas

Drivers of cars that don't have Shanghai car plates face being banned from the city's most gridlocked areas after next month, officials with the city traffic watchdog said yesterday.

This is the extension of a scheme that currently sees cars with non-local plates banned from expressways during the morning (7:30am-9:30am) and evening (4:30pm-6:30pm) rush-hour periods.

The Shanghai Transport Commission did not announce which roads will be affected by the new ban, nor when it will apply.

Officials said the ban would help ease congestion in the city.

It also said there will be improvements to parking fee collecting in downtown.

These measures will also be introduced gradually from April, reported news website thepaper.cn.

At the end of last year there were almost 2.2 million vehicles with Shanghai plates — an increase of 194,000 on the end of 2013.

The authority now issues about 100,000 new plates every year.

While Shanghai has restricted the increase of local-plate vehicles through the auction system, numbers of vehicles with non-local plates have been growing by 150,000 every year.

Shanghai is expected to experience serious traffic congestion this year due to the construction of new Metro lines, traffic hubs and roads, said commission warned.

To minimise this, the city will introduce a management system based on larger-scale data, give regular updates on road conditions and improve public transport, it said.