Transport authorities confirmed Thursday that Beijing will extend its license plate lottery policy for another year in order to ease the city's congestion.

Potential buyers will still be required to participate in a lottery next year in order to obtain new purchase permits and more specific measures are under discussion, said Li Xiaosong, deputy director of the municipal commission of transport.

Li made the remarks following public doubts regarding the fairness of the policy, as many people who have attempted to obtain a license plate through the lottery have failed, while others who have won plates have not used them.

Li said 173,000 new vehicles were registered through the lottery last year, 617,000 fewer than in 2010.

The total number of Beijing-registered cars reached 5.18 million at the end of November.

The license plate lottery was launched by the municipal public security, human resources and social security bureaus and is supervised by officials and experts to ensure fairness and openness, Li said, adding that every applicant has an equal chance to win a new plate.

The municipal government introduced a regulation in January 2011 that curbed the growth of new vehicle sales by capping the total number of cars that could be registered in 2011 at 240,000, about one-third of the number registered in 2010. ( The regulation requires potential buyers to participate in a lottery every month to get new purchase permits. Those who fail to win new plates are automatically entered in subsequent rounds.

Beijing has also retained an "even-odd" driving regulation that requires private vehicles to stay off the roads on different days of the week, depending on whether their license plate number ends in an odd or even number.

Traffic congestion has been a problem for many Chinese cities. The cities of Shanghai, Guangzhou and Guiyang have also capped passenger vehicle registrations through license plate lotteries and auctions.

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