Roads groan under strain of holiday traffic

By Wu Wencong (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-05-04 08:00

With the city's roads jammed with traffic during the long weekend, the Beijing Capital Highway Development Group, the organization that manages toll routes, was doing all it could to keep drivers moving.

An official, surnamed Wang, from the State-owned company said it had brought in four initiatives this year.

Wang said extra staff were working in toll booths while contra-flow lanes were carefully managed throughout the weekend. The company also launched a telephone reservation system for groups of vehicles traveling together through toll gates and opened more electronic toll lanes.

"Additional staff were sent to the toll stations along the highways," Wang told METRO. "They worked with regular toll station staff and collected fees by hand during times of heavy traffic.

"Also, the traffic lanes at the toll stations coming to and from Beijing were assigned according to volume. If there was more traffic coming into the city, we would change several lanes running out of the city so that they flowed in the opposite direction."

Wang explained the new telephone reservation system let drivers call in advance to book a private lane for groups of vehicles traveling together.

"In addition, another 100 electronic toll collection (ETC) lanes were put into use before the holiday, bringing the total number of ETC lanes in Beijing to 365," Wang said. "People can save a lot of time by using the ETC system."

The moves eased congestion in and around traditional log jams but holiday traffic was very heavy nonetheless.

Because of the relatively short duration of the public holiday - three days as opposed to seven days at Spring Festival - most journeys were short hauls this time and included many road trips instead of long-haul train rides. As a result, highways were busier this time than bus and train stations.

Traffic authorities have not yet released any firm numbers for how many vehicles were on the roads this weekend.

But Wang said road conditions were significantly busier than usual, despite the attempts to mitigate the jams.

"There were traffic jams on almost all the highways around Beijing during the past two days, starting from as early as 7 am each day," said Wang.

Traffic was heaviest on three main highways leading to the city: the Badaling Expressway from Yanqing county; Beijing-Chengde Expressway from Miyun county, and Beijing-Shijiazhuang Expressway from Fangshan district.

"Congestion on highways during public holidays is quite normal, especially for those roads that run between tourist hotspots and the downtown," Wang said. "And we have taken a lot of measures to tackle the congestion."

The city's rail and long-distance bus stations also braced for an influx of people, with more than 150,000 expected to return to the capital on Monday, Mirror Evening News reported on Monday.