Beijing's transport authorities will limit the number of cars added to the city's roads in the years leading up to 2020 as well as adding more green vehicles to the capital's public transport system, the Beijing Daily reported Tuesday.
The Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport published Monday its transport plan for the 13th Five-year Plan period (2016-20) on its official website, saying it will invest a total of 750 billion yuan ($112.5 billion) in infrastructure projects in 49 sectors, including civil aviation, railways and urban roads.
According to the plan, the number of motor vehicles in Beijing will be kept under 6 million by the end of 2017 and will be limited to around 6.3 million by the end of 2020. This means that only 100,000 cars will be added to the city's roads each year, around one-third less than current growth.
The document also laid out plans to increase the proportion of green vehicles, such as electric buses, from 35.7 percent last year to 65 percent in 2020.
A detailed action plan is still being developed, a Beijing transport official said, adding that new rules for car license auctions, extra car registration charges, for how long licenses are valid and fees for renewing licenses have been based on the examples set by Shanghai and Singapore.
Rules on car parking and car licenses will be issued in the future to reduce the use of cars and exhaust emissions.
The plan also says that the traffic index, a real-time measure of urban traffic congestion, will be kept between moderate and severe; and commutes within Beijing's Third Ring Road by public transport will be cut to one hour on average, seven minutes less than it was in 2015.
