Beijing Will Decrease Issued License Plates in 2018

Oct 31, 2016 06:29 AM EDT

(Photo : GETTY IMAGES) Vehicles stuck on the road during World Car Free Day on September 22, 2014 in Beijing, China. World Car-Free Day encourages motorists to ditch their cars for another form of transportation, while promoting alternatives to a car-dominated society, and is held on September 22 every year.

Beijing is always inundated with traffic jams, and the city government is taking another step to battle the nightmarish congestion.

The government implemented a lottery scheme in 2011 for granting license plates where only a total of 150,000 plates are granted to car owners annually, 90,000 for gas-powered vehicles and 60,000 for new-energy vehicles.

Like Us on Facebook

But Beijing's Municipal Commission of Transport said during the Global Sustainable Infrastructure and Connectivity Summit last week that they will cut down the number of license plates to 100,000 beginning in 2018. This is in line with the government's goals to reduce the number of cars on Beijing's roads to 6.3 million by 2020, a little higher than the 5.6 million estimated cars in 2020.

Apart from traffic congestion, the local government uncovered a scam where people purchase struggling companies that own cars with authorized plate numbers to avoid entering the lottery. According to an agency that broker these kinds of deals, the worth of a small company with a license plate can amount to 180,000 yuan (US$26,000).

The lottery for the month of October was held last week where only 1 in every 754 entries received a license plate.

"The way to solve traffic congestion will gradually shift from administrative regulations into economic means and technological process," said Zhou Zhengyu, director of Beijing's Transport Commission.

There's just too many

The number of cars on Beijing roads are increasing quickly despite government measures. There were 5.62 million cars on the road by the end of 2015, while newly registered cars grew to 6.18 million in 2016's Q3, a 24.2 percent year-on-year climb.

Data from the Ministry of Public Security showed that from January 1 to September 30, a total of 19.19 million new cars were registered, marking a 14.6 percent annual increase. There are 350 million licensed car driver by the end of September.

In 47 cities, more than 1 million people own a car, while there are more than 2 million car owners in 16 cities including Shanghai, Beijing, and Chongqing.

Tagstraffic in Beijing, traffic in China, China's lottery scheme, China plate numbers