China's transport development in the '11th Five-Year Plan' period and the prospective development in the '12th Five-Year Plan' period
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1.4 Substantial progress of transport science and technology and IT application with the capacity for environmental protection gradually strengthened and the legal system further improved
The system for transport scientific and technological innovation has been initially established. Major breakthroughs have been made in a number of major and key technologies. The level of research and development keeps advancing. Several world-class projects, represented by Suzhou-Nantong Bridge, Hangzhou Bay Cross-sea Bridge, the Highway Tunnel through Zhongnanshan Mountain of Qinling Mountains and the Deep-water Channel Renovation Project at the Yangtze River estuary, have been successively completed.
The level of IT application has been considerably improved. The Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) system is available on more than 1,600 highways. Initial progress has been made in energy saving and emission reduction. The transport turnover energy consumption from operating vehicles, vessels and the comprehensive unit energy consumption from port production decreased by 5%, 7% and 4% respectively compared to the end of the tenth five-year plan period.
Transport legislation has been continuously advanced. The Postal Law was revised, and the Regulations for Seafarers, the Regulations on the Prevention of Ship-source Pollution, the Regulations of China Civil Airport Management and 55 other decrees have been promulgated by the Ministry of Transport.
1.5 Implementation of decisions and arrangements of the Party Central Committee and the State Council and full commitment to complete major reforms
The first major reform was in 2008. Upon the decision by the State Council, the Ministry of Communications, the General Administration of Civil Aviation and the State Post Bureau underwent a restructuring and jointly formed the Ministry of Transport. The establishment of the Ministry of Transport has provided a better platform for transformation of government functions to strengthen functions related to public administration and public services, and optimization of transport layout to establish a convenient, safe and efficient integrated transport system. Within the two years following this reform, the Ministry of Transport has put its focus on the following four aspects. The first was the integration of development plans to incorporate the plans of civil aviation and post sectors into the general development plan for transport; secondly, efforts were made to accelerate the establishment of city integrated transport hubs, so far a number of integrated transport hubs have come into operation in major cities such as Beijing and Shanghai; thirdly, more guidance has been provided to give priority to the development of public transport system, and the "Guidelines on the Enhancement of Management and Promotion of Sound Development of Taxi Services" have been formulated and issued; lastly, efforts were also made to harmonize laws, regulations and standards on the development of an integrated transport system. It is indicated from these work that the Ministry of Transport has made a big step forward in promoting administration reforms in transport sector which has yielded tangible outcomes.
The second major reform was in 2009. In the light of general requirements on the fuel tax reform initiated by the State Council in 2009, the Ministry of Transport have been actively engaged in the reform of gradually abolishing tolls of Class II highways financed by loans granted to government. By the end of last year, 17 provinces have eliminated tolls of Class II highways financed by loans granted to the governments, and 1,723 toll stations were closed which involved a total mileage of over 90,000 kilometers.
Over these years, especially over the last decade of rapid development, the transport infrastructure construction in China has made great accomplishments by which the heavy transport demand has been generally relieved and bottleneck constraints for further development have been removed. These have laid a solid foundation for the further transport development in the twelfth five-year plan period.
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