Proposal aims to cut unnecessary subway trips at busiest times

BEIJING - The Beijing traffic authority is considering charging more for a subway ride at rush hours to help ease passenger congestion.

The move would be an attempt to keep some passengers off the subway during periods of heaviest traffic and to lure more passengers with the lower fares to travel during quieter periods, an unnamed official from the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport told the Beijing Times on Sunday.

The report did not provide details of the proposed price range and when the policy will come into effect, but said a feasibility study into the new policy is being undertaken.

A call to the office of the municipal transport authority on Sunday afternoon went unanswered.

Beijing opened five new subway lines at the end of last year, bringing the city's total metro length to 336 km on 14 lines. But the ticket fare has been unchanged since 2006 at two yuan (30 cents) for a single trip to any destination.

As more underground lines have been built to ease the city's road gridlock, the number of passengers crowding into the subway has also increased.

Last month, 190 million person-trips were made on the Beijing subway, an increase of 18.8 percent compared with that of a year before.

The Batong subway line, which extends Line 1 eastward from Sihui to the suburban Tongzhou district, has carried more than 30 percent more passengers in peak times than originally expected, according to the transport commission.

"There were just too many people packed in there, especially at transfer stations," said Xiang Yu, a 25-year-old Beijing resident, who lives in the east Tongzhou district and spends about 80 minutes on the subway going to his office at Zhongguancun in the northwest downtown on weekdays.

"I have to wait for several trains before elbowing my way to get a foot in," he said.

Xiang does not believe the new policy will help ease the heavy use in peak times.

He said even if the ticket price was higher, he would still choose the subway because of its punctuality and easy transfers.

"Most working people in the city would think the same," he said.

Yang Hongshan, a professor of public administration at Renmin University of China, said the policy should be open to debate.

He said the purpose of building subways was to attract people to take trains at peak times rather than buses or private cars.

The policy might lead to a flow back to above-ground transport that might jam the capital's already congested roads.

"The government should speed up building more subways rather than raising ticket prices for more revenue," he said.

Duan Liren, a professor specializing in transport at Chang'an University in Xi'an, supported Beijing's current fixed low subway fares which operate under government subsidy.

He said many people now chose the subways as their main public transport mode, and this eased the pressure on the roads and benefited the environment.

"I doubt whether it is the right time to make the change," he said.

China Daily

(China Daily 06/20/2011 page7)