New car owners in Beijing has begun to use licence plates started with the letter of "L" as the city's registered 3.07 million cars have devoured more letters on the alphabet with a daily register of more than 1,000 cars.
According to local traffic authorities, Beijing, with a population around 16 million, has seen a steep acceleration in the car registration.
Each letter, followed by numbers, provide around 330,000 licence plate codes for cars in Beijing. The letters are currently used alphabetically if the registered licence plates beginning with a certain letter reach the maximum.
According to statistics newly released by the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, it takes five years for the "E" plates to be used up, one year for the "F" plates and less than one year for the "K" plates, signaling a faster growth in car number in the city.
More than 80 percent of the cars in the city are private cars.
The host city of the 2008 Olympics has decided to ban the use of about 1.3 million automobiles for four days this month to test the effects of this move on environmental quality. From Aug. 17 to 20, the city will have cars with odd-numbered license plates and those with even-numbered ones hit the roads on alternate days.
(Xinhua News Agency August 16, 2007)
