**3.3 Urban form factors**

*Sustainability in Urban Planning and Design*

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

*Comparison of per capita GDP and per capita VKT in Beijing from 2002 to 2016. Source: Compiled based on* 

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

• Restrictions on the operation of private automobiles on certain days through-

• Limitations on the number of driving licences made available to the public, a

• Since 2011, termination of three pro-car policies designed to help overcome the

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

out the 2008 Olympic Games, based on licence plate end numbers

and use of private automobiles across China. These included:

**284**

GDP levels.

**Figure 7.**

*data provided by [21, 22].*

**3.2 Cultural and political factors**

process initiated in 2010

2008 global financial crisis (GFC).

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 income growth.
