Beijing has set up a monitoring system to provide real-time
reports on traffic conditions in the city's center to alleviate its
notorious congestion, a senior municipal transportation official
said yesterday.
It is estimated that traffic congestion causes 13 billion yuan
(US$1.7 billion) in economic losses every year, said Wang Gang,
director of the Beijing Municipal Transportation Information
Center.
The average vehicle speed is about 20 kmph, and an average
driver spends two to three hours a day stuck in traffic.
"What is more, the low speeds mean a lot of energy is wasted and
more emissions are released," Wang told a press conference
yesterday.
The utilization rate of the city's roads is about 20 percent, he
added.
Wang said his center could give city residents real-time reports
on traffic conditions within the fifth ring road.
"People can access the information via FM radio, their mobile
phones or a terminal installed in their vehicles. Or they could log
on to the center's website," he said.
The center receives traffic information from special global
positioning system terminals installed in about 10,000 cabs around
the city, he said, adding that the scale of the project was
unprecedented in the world.
More terminals could be added to cabs and buses during the 2008
Olympic Games, he said.
And yesterday the center unveiled a vehicle navigation terminal
developed in collaboration with Nissan Motor Co Ltd. The system can
inform drivers of the fastest route to their destinations by
analyzing traffic information to avoid congestion.
Minoru Shinohara, general manager of Nissan's technology
development division, said that experiments carried out on Beijing
roads showed that the terminal could help drivers save about 20
percent of their travel time compared to those without a
terminal.
The 14th World Congress on Intelligent Transport Systems will be
held in Beijing from October 9 to 13, Wang said.
(China Daily August 1, 2007)