**3. Contributors to the decline of car use in Beijing and Shanghai**

#### **3.1 Economic factors**

Economic factors can play a more significant role in determining automobile ownership compared to actual usage due to differences in land use intensity [18]. However, most models for car use growth still assume it is driven by economic growth, especially in developing economies. Unlike automobile ownership, the actual need for automobile use has been shown to have decoupled from the financial capacity to pay for it; for example, the amount of car driving per unit of real gross domestic product (GDP) significantly declined between 1995 and 2005 in a large sample of world cities [19, 20]. Taking Beijing as an example, **Figure 7**, which depicts

<sup>5</sup> The sharp decrease in daily patronage by trolley bus and bus in the year of 1996 is largely due to the cancellation of monthly pass in 1995 and bus system reform in 1996.

**Figure 7.**

*Comparison of per capita GDP and per capita VKT in Beijing from 2002 to 2016. Source: Compiled based on data provided by [21, 22].*

the number of passenger cars per 1000 permanent residents, a continuous growth trend is evident in tandem with the ever-increasing per capita GDP at Beijing municipal level. However, the level of private automobile use grows to the inflexion point in 2010 and then starts dropping, despite a continuing improvement in the urban economic performance of Beijing. Furthermore in Beijing, personal income generally decreases from the city centre to the city fringe, whereas the use of the automobile increases in the opposite way. This suggests other factors than economic drivers as set out in other studies [6]. In this paper we will examine cultural, political and urban fabrics as the decoupling seems to have set in well before other cities in terms of GDP levels.

### **3.2 Cultural and political factors**

Wealth increases have certainly led to higher levels of car use in most cities over the past 100 years, but the decline in car use setting in needs further explanation. One of the other factors would appear to be a cultural and political intervention that makes other modes more attractive. The increase in public transport in Beijing was made possible largely through the priority, which the government placed on bus and train infrastructure development. This occurred at both a local and national level in accordance with the central government's 12th Five-Year Plan (FYP) (2011–2015). As part of this shift away from the automobile, transportation demand management (TDM) initiatives were also introduced in an effort to further curb the ownership and use of private automobiles across China. These included:


As a result of these initiatives, automobile modal split in Beijing plateaued in 2010 before starting a downward trend. This is despite an increase in private automobile ownership in Beijing which would have had the potential to counteract this fall. However, research has shown that for many Chinese urban residents, the automobile

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*The Rise and Decline of Car Use in Beijing and Shanghai DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5772/intechopen.90130*

instead to provide a better public transport option [11].

**3.3 Urban form factors**

building local neighbourhoods6

the *Doctrine of the Mean*<sup>7</sup>

longer corridors.

of moral code and natural law in China.

income growth.

is seen more as a status symbol than an efficient means of daily transport. The new options now available would appear to be saving time compared to the highly congested road system and the decision to not build more freeways but

*3.3.1 Traditional low-rise and high-density urban form and short blocks*

*3.3.2 Central square and linear corridor form of urban development*

[26]. The Kao Gong Ji8

Chinese cities have been historically high in density [23] and as will be shown below have been increasing in density. Urban form factors are likely therefore to be a strong explanatory factor in why both Beijing and Shanghai started declining in car use well before they were expected to do so due to usual predictions from

The low-rise, high-density blocks, which characterise China's traditional way of

family detached houses, facilitate the walking-scale environments typical of Chinese cities. In particular, the mixture of residential, commercial and recreational land use within these traditional Chinese communities provides local shops, small public spaces (squares or playgrounds) and other community services. It enables these local areas to cater for their daily necessities within walking distance. The close proximity generated by the short blocks also shortens the pedestrian distance [24]. Finally, this type of urban form helps to facilitate and operate more efficient public transport for these communities. The urban density of the whole city of Beijing and Shanghai is around 50 and 70 persons per hectare in 2005, similar to some European cities and much higher than typical automobile-dependent cities in Canada, Australia and America [25].

As well as the organic density of traditional cities, there has been a long commitment to planning the city into a central square and linear corridor. This is known as the imperial-centred and axisymmetric urban form, which is affected by

based on a square or rectangular shape, a pattern that was developed during the Dynasty of Western Zhou (1046 BC–771 BC) and led to the traditional road grid. This chessboard-like urban form based on small block sizes with multiple route choices is ideally suited to walking which has dominated Chinese urban transport for thousands of years. It also laid the foundation for the later construction and development of efficient public transport corridors across many Chinese cities, and because it was dense and had relatively clear roadways, it was also suitable for the bicycle that grew rapidly in China from the end of the nineteenth century. Then when trams came, they followed these roads and took them further out into

<sup>6</sup> Local neighbourhoods in the Chinese context evolved from a quadrangle courtyard (shaped before the establishment of New China), collective compounds (dominated during planned economy before 1978 as a part of social welfare) and commercial residential buildings with entrance guard (popular in the modern economy). It is now mostly enclosed by walls or fences for privacy, security and property rights. <sup>7</sup> The *Doctrine of the Mean* is one of the *Four Books of Confucianism* and also regarded as the highest level

<sup>8</sup> This document records the specification and technology of crafts in Ancient China, playing a signifi-

cant role in urban planning of Chinese cities, especially the capital cities and political cities.

rather than the western-style low-density and single-

document presents a city centre

is seen more as a status symbol than an efficient means of daily transport. The new options now available would appear to be saving time compared to the highly congested road system and the decision to not build more freeways but instead to provide a better public transport option [11].
