At a press conference on Beijing's proposed solutions to traffic jams held in late September, 2003, Liu Xiaoming -- deputy director with the Beijing Municipal Communications Commission -- discussed the reasons for the traffic tension.

With people's needs for transport facilities increasing substantially over the past few years, the road network in Beijing is far from rational, said Liu.

Stimulated by high demand, the number of private cars in Beijing has increased since 1995 at an average annual rate of over 30 percent, while the number of motor vehicles overall has increased by only around 15 percent per year on average over the same period.

In previous years, a car was a consumer good that Chinese families did not even dare dream of owning, but cars are now becoming more accessible to the masses.

Guo Yong, head of the Beijing-based Yayuncun Automobile Trade Market's business centre, said motor vehicles have sold particularly well so far this year in the capital.

He told China Daily that, in his market alone, nearly 6,000 motor vehicles have been sold in one month at peak periods, with the daily volume of business amounting to between 200 and 300 vehicles sold.

Explaining the surge in demand, Guo said: "Nowadays, cars are quite common for the masses, who can afford them and also have a need for them.

"Moreover, relatively speaking, Beijing boasts a better consumer environment as well as a steady and open policy.''

In a survey conducted by a well-known women's magazine, 63 percent of the 50 white-collar women polled said they were very interested in cars and they could list more than 10 brands. Some of them even mentioned car brands with which most Chinese are not very familiar.

Of the 50 women polled, 12 percent already had a car and they said that, for them, driving a car was so natural that they did not need to think about it.

Cars have become a part of these women's lives and are regarded as not just a means of transport but also as a mobile office and dressing room.

For a long time, most Chinese believed that a car was something for only men and not women, and this attitude can still be seen in car advertisements, most of which are aimed at a male audience.

However, the fact that women are buying cars with their own money shows that the age of the car in China is coming.

At last month's press conference, Liu also explained that road construction in Beijing has failed to keep up with the sharp increase in the number of cars.

The government has found that the increasing volume of cars has been seizing limited traffic resources from public transport, added Liu.

Xu Shu, a 23-year-old sales representative with a foreign-funded corporation, said he plans to buy a car at the end of this year.

When questioned why he chose to buy a car rather than travel by public transport everyday, Xu said he does not have a fixed workplace but has to visit several hypermarkets every day and some of them are in the suburbs. Owning a car is more convenient and saves time compared to traveling by bus or metro, he said.

Xu added that, at the same time, he understood that the increase in the number of private cars would worsen the already poor traffic conditions but he said he could see no better way out.

Another factor that has aggravated traffic conditions is the absence of a modern traffic consciousness among private car buyers and drivers as well as other citizens, said Liu.

In other international metropolises, such as Paris and Tokyo, the volume of private cars far exceeds the number in Beijing. However, 60 to 80 percent of citizens in large cities in Europe or the United States travel on public transport, a rate two or three times that in Beijing.

In Beijing, most of the important political, commercial and cultural locations are concentrated in the area within the Fourth Ring Road and this is a root cause of today's heavy traffic load, according to Liu.

However, some experts hold that, in addition to objective factors such as the larges volume of vehicles, the sharp increase in new cars and the relatively slow expansion of roads, another root cause of Beijing's traffic jams lies in the layout of the capital city and poor traffic management.

According to sources with the China Economic Herald newspaper, the sharp increase in car numbers over the past few years is not the only reason for the traffic jams.

Taking into consideration the present population in Beijing, the current traffic situation in the capital is far from reasonable given that the volume of vehicles totals only around 2 million, whether the situation is viewed in terms of international precedent or theoretical analysis.

The sources said this indicates that there is great room for improvement in administering the current level of traffic.

Experts have called on the relevant departments to focus on the rational layout of the traffic network, including metro lines, flyovers, platform bridges and pedestrian underpasses.

For instance, there continued to be traffic jams around the Xizhimen cloverleaf intersection in Haidian District, even after the junction was rebuilt in 1999.

It is clear that the government failed to deal properly with road intersections, which have resulted in bottlenecks in the road network and thus directly led to traffic jams.

Improving traffic administration constitutes a systematic project, involving the quality of personnel and the formulation and implementation of relevant rules and policies, the sources added.

An anonymous Internet user giving his opinion on the Sina website pointed out that, as China's traffic administration departments lack a comprehensive management system for traffic flow, traffic jams that take place on one road often affect traffic on several other routes.

"In this regard, we should learn from the practice of other countries,'' he added. "When there is a traffic jam on one road, the traffic lights on other routes should be adjusted accordingly and the flow of vehicles controlled, relieving the overall congestion.''

Not long ago, there was controversy when it was said that the municipal government would restrict the increasing number of private cars in order to relieve the capital's traffic conditions.

It was also said that private car drivers would have to pay an extra tax when applying for a license plate.

An official surnamed Tong, of the Municipal Communications Commission, told China Daily that this story arose from a discussion meeting in which the commission outlined its tentative plans for resolving the capital's traffic jams to the higher-level delegates of the Beijing Municipal People's Congress

She explained that the proposal was put forward at a forum and so she personally believed that the restrictions on private cars would by no means be put on the agenda in the near future.

In addition, the motor manufacturing industry is a key industry for the capital, and government policies would continue to encourage car buying, added Tong.