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https://nap.nationalacademies.org/catalog/27432/critical-issues-in-transportation-for-2024-and-beyond

Bidding to Drive: Car License Auction Policy in Shanghai and Its Public Acceptance

Increased automobile ownership and use in China have led to traffic congestion, high energy consumption, and severe air pollution, and an urgent need for congestion control policies in major cities. The countrywide growth in car ownership, however, conceals great variation among cities. For example, Shanghai and Beijing both had about 2 million private cars each in 2004, but by 2010, Beijing already had 4.8 million private cars whereas Shanghai had only 3.1 million. Shanghai’s growth rate was about half that of Beijing. Many factors have contributed to this divergence but one of them is Shanghai’s very active vehicle control policy, which uses monthly license auctions to limit the number of new cars. The policy appears to be effective: in addition to dampening growth in car ownership, it generates annual revenues up to 4 billion CNY. But important questions must be answered: Do Shanghai people accept the policy and to what degree? Can other Chinese or western cities learn from this policy which, in most western cities, would be deemed draconian? In this study, the authors surveyed 524 employees at nine Shanghai companies to investigate public acceptance of Shanghai’s license auction policy and factors that contribute to acceptance: perceived policy effectiveness, affordability, equity concerns, and policy implementation. Respondents perceived the policy to be effective to some extent, but were largely negative towards the policy themselves although they expected that others would accept the policy more than they did. Respondents were consistently negative about affordability, four aspects of equity concerns and the implementation process. There were clear problems with lack of transparency in revenue usage, the perception that government vehicles enjoyed various license advantages, the bidding process and technology, and difficulties in obtaining information about the auction policy. When asked to consider license auctions in relation to other policy options, respondents thought that license auctions and congestion charges were more effective and acceptable than parking charges and fuel taxes. To improve public acceptability of the policy, the authors make six recommendations: transparency in revenue usage; transparency in government vehicle licensing and use, categorizing licenses by vehicle type, implementation and technology improvements to increase bidding convenience; a designated policy information website; and consideration of policies that restrict vehicle usage in congested locations.

  • Supplemental Notes:
    • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee ABE90 Transportation in the Developing Countries
  • Corporate Authors:

    Transportation Research Board

    500 Fifth Street, NW
    Washington, DC  United States  20001
  • Authors:
    • Chen, Tracy (Xiao Jie)
    • Zhao, Jinhua
  • Conference:
  • Date: 2012

Language

  • English

Media Info

  • Media Type: Digital/other
  • Features: Appendices; Figures; References; Tables;
  • Pagination: 27p
  • Monograph Title: TRB 91st Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers DVD

Subject/Index Terms

Filing Info

  • Accession Number: 01372527
  • Record Type: Publication
  • Report/Paper Numbers: 12-4694
  • Files: TRIS, TRB
  • Created Date: Jun 14 2012 10:56AM