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It is extremely hard for Beijing to ensure smooth traffic flow
even during ordinary hours, given its long-standing traffic
congestion problems.
The difficulty seems to turn into a mission impossible, when
about 5,000 participants gather in the capital to attend the annual
sessions of China's top legislature and political advisory
body.
But Beijing traffic police are rising to the challenge through a
well-designed program and the use of high-tech equipment.
The National People's Congress (NPC), the top legislature, and
the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political
Consultative Conference (CPPCC) will hold their annual meetings
from March 3 to March 14.
Participants in these major meetings will be staying in 22
hotels scattered around the city, and traffic jams caused by the
motorcades which take them from these hotels to the Great Hall of
the People have long been headaches for local residents.
Beijing has already been suffering from heavy traffic mainly due
to an exploding number of vehicles, which reached 2.12 million at
the end of last year.
Even so, Beijing traffic police are managing to keep traffic
inconveniences caused by the convention of the meetings to a
minimum level, said Beijing Municipal Traffic Administration
Director Li Jianhua.
He revealed that a special traffic control program, consisting
of a number of innovative measures will be put into place to
greatly improve traffic flow throughout the meeting period.
A core part of the program is to use advanced global positioning
system (GPS) equipment to ensure an uninterrupted flow of traffic,
the director said.
That's because the accuracy of the GPS consoles will help
arrange the participants' journeys to and from conference
gatherings more effectively, and thus highly shorten the running
time of their motorcades on the road.
Li said the average time for a motorcade to travel between a
hotel and the Great Hall of the People is expected to be cut to 35
minutes this year from 50 minutes in the past.
That means less traffic control time to limit the driving by
other vehicles, and fewer driveways will have to be cleared to pave
way for motorcades of these meetings.
Cheng Jian, another official with the traffic administration,
said local traffic police will set up a command centre in the Great
Hall of the People to dispatch all the motorcades according to the
actual traffic conditions.
Dispatchers at the center can monitor the travel times of each
motorcade, so that they do not stretch too long on the road and
cause traffic jams.
"We will try our best to make sure the average speed of these
motorcades can reach 60 kilometres an hour, to reduce disruptions
to the normal travel of other vehicles," he said.
Cheng added that the traffic administration also plans to notify
local drivers of traffic information in advance through radio,
outdoor electronic screens and temporary traffic and road signs to
avoid traffic problems.
"(Thanks to the newly added notices,) I can at least choose
another route before bumping into the motorcades and be reduced to
endless waiting without the slightest idea when the move can
resume," said Zhang Dongquan, a middle-aged taxi driver with the
Beijing Yuyang Taxi Company.
Meanwhile, organizers of the NPC and CPPCC National Committee
meetings have also taken cooperative measures to alleviate any
potential traffic troubles.
A staff member with the Logistics Team of the NPC session told
China Daily that organizers of the meetings have tried
their best to reduce the use of vehicles.
"Almost all panel discussions and delegation meetings will be
arranged in the hotels where these NPC deputies and CPPCC National
Committee members will be staying," said a clerk who declined to be
named.
"Only a minimum number of delegation meetings and some press
conferences will be held in the Great Hall of the People, apart
from the plenary meetings."?
(China Daily March 4, 2004)
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