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Beijing is not only the capital of China, but also the culture and economic centre of China. Large permanent residents and floating population make it possible for Beijing to become a “mega-city’. At the same time, the inter-city railway and highway make it possible that some cities to become satellite cities of Beijing. According to the traffic in Beijing, the report proposes measures to in “mega-city’, including optimizing urban layout, controlling the use of private cars, improving public travel efficiency and reducing exhaust emissions.
In brief, establishing Beijing to BEA mega-city’ so as to reduce the per capital carbon emissions is a method to solve the problem of air pollution. Table of Contents Co intents Summary 2 Overview 4 Research Methodology Body 5 1. Current situation in Beijing 5 2. Solutions to atmosphere pollution based on traffic planning 3. Develop Beijing into a “mega city” 10 Conclusion 11 References 13 LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Emission amount and main sources of CO 6 Figure 2: Consummation annually currant par personnel This paper aims to analyze the relationship between urban traffic and air quality in Beijing.
The objective of this paper is to assess a new framework which allows the communication between transport emissions and air pollutant concentrations. The report would also provide a new system that promotes economic development while reducing atmosphere pollution impacts. The design of the system and the results from its feasibility study for the mega-city of Beijing are discussed; the test run still in progress should be addressed in future works.
Overview Road transport has become one of the most important sources of atmospheric pollution in Beijing. The quantity of vehicles grows by about 10 recent every year and there were more than 4 million vehicles at the end of 2009. The continual traffic growth has raised concerns over the impact of traffic emissions on urban environmental quality, and has fuelled the demand for a coherent regulatory framework for the management of traffic, air quality and emission at urban level, as well as at regional and national scales.
From traffic planning perspective, the effective measures to improve Begging’s air quality should be: setting up reasonable traffic routes and traffic areas, strengthening the public traffic function, distributing appropriate public remonstration center and promoting the subway. Research Methodology To ensure that the coverage of report writing presented in this report is comprehensive, information was collected from a variety of sources. This includes some excellent articles from the databases of ANITA library.
A selection of web-based documents and on-line journals were also consulted to add variety to the report. And finally, an interview was conducted with Sheen Shah, the direct manager of Beijing Transportation Bureau, to confirm the accuracy of the date used in this report as well as to confirm the validity f the sources used in the report. Body Air pollution is one Of China’s most pressing environmental problems and vehicle emissions have become the most important source of ambient air pollution.
Walsh (2000) estimates that mobile vehicles are contributing approximately 45-60% of the Knox emissions and about 85% of the CO emissions in typical Chinese cities, including Beijing. Some have argued that urban air pollution in cities is shifting from a predominantly coal-burning type to a coal-vehicle mixed type or even a vehicular pollution dominant type (Eden, 2006). 1. Current situation in Beijing . 1 The main sources of atmosphere pollution in Beijing The quantity of vehicles in Beijing grows by about 1 0 percent every year and it is more than 4000,000 by the end of 2009.
Although the quantity of private cars in Beijing compared with that of New York, Tokyo and other developed mega cities is not very large, we must notice that there are two important traffic characteristics connected with air environment: one is that only less than 35% private vehicles meet with European exhaust emission standards (Go, Change, Chin, Chou, & Wang, 2010); the other is that not only he quantity but also the fuel efficiency of private vehicles will influence the air quality.
For example, if a car Starts and brakes continuously Or runs at a low speed, the oil consumption and exhaust emissions will be twice as the same car in running status. Unfortunately, as we all know, traffic congestion is a common status of Beijing. That’s why we must pay much attention on the solution of atmospheric pollution based on traffic planning. There are two main factors cause air pollution in urban areas of Beijing.
One is coal combustion; the other is automobile exhaust emissions. The good news is after the completion of West to East Natural Gas Transmission Engineering, the air pollution caused by coal combustion has already been greatly abated (Go et al 2010). The automobile exhaust emissions become the most important source of the air pollution. With the rapid increase of the private vehicles, the exhaust emissions will be more and more serious. [pica] Fig. 1.
Emission amount ( in cotton/year and percentage) and main source of CO in Beijing (2001 ) (Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau, 2003) According to Figure 1, it is easy to find that automobile exhaust emissions are he main source Of CO in Beijing and the percent is 74%. The percentage Of emissions from industry is 14% and from civil is 12%. Other source is so little that we can omitted. Controlling and decreasing automobile exhaust emissions should be an important way to improve air quality in Beijing. 1. 2 Analyses on current traffic situation in Beijing The metro currently transports 547. Million passengers every year in Beijing and this figure is on the top of the metro transportation of the mega cities in the world. At the same time, ground transit system transports about 4. 5 billion passengers every year. Yang & Crooked, 2009) In Beijing, residents and floating population are both over 10 million. The overpopulated situation caused not only the metro but also the ground transportation to be saturated. The travel demand outweighs the transportation capacity to become a regular state in Beijing.
This situation stimulates the demand of buying private vehicles and taking a taxi. Both private vehicles and taxis have much more automobile exhaust emissions than that of public transportation and make the traffic much crowded. Thus, traffic management and atmosphere pollution control is in a vicious circle. At the end of 2009, there are nearly private vehicles in Beijing. In 1998, it was 300,000 (Ha, Wang, Song, Lie & Annoying, 2010). The number increased tenfold in 10 years and is still in rapid increasing stage.
We Can Say it is the result of the rapid development of economic in China in recent 10 years and the residents’ personal purchasing power increase fast at the same time; it also exposes the saturation of the public transportation in Beijing and is the most direct stimulation to the demand of private vehicles. When the ground transit system conveys 8 billion persons per year the metro should convey 75 billion errors per year. Therefore, the public transit capacity could meet with the growing public transportation demand in Beijing and make the demand for private vehicles to be in a reasonable condition (Ha et 2010).
There is a huge gap between current transit ability and the planning. 2. Solutions to atmosphere pollution based on traffic planning In order to solve the problem of atmosphere pollution in Beijing the municipal government adopts a variety of ways. The rule of “even and odd-numbered license plates”and preservation some government vehicles during the 2008 Olympic Games are undoubtedly an effective way. Although this way can only be temporary, the result indicated that solutions based on traffic planning can effectively solve the atmosphere pollution problem. 2. Optimization traffic conception in “mega city” By all means, developing public transportation, improving transmission capacity, and reducing the number of private vehicles are effective ways to improve air quality. But we often doubt: why developed countries are able to maintain good air quality even though they have much more private vehicles than Beijing? On urban traffic planning of developed countries, it is concluded that quantity of private vehicle is not the decisive factors on air quality; using efficiency and fuel efficiency of private vehicles and other factors must be considered( squat, Koala, Amasses & Jaded 2010).
For example, the oil consumption and exhaust emissions of a car in constant running status are only half of that if the same car in continuous starting, braking and waiting status. At the same time, we also find that, urban residents’ carbon consumption is inversely proportional to city scale and population density. Figure 2 indicates the relationship of these three factors. Per capita carbon consumption Urban population density (persons per acre) Fig. 2.
The relationship between population density and per capita carbon consumption According to figure 2, we can see that the population of Hong Kong is densest in there compared cities, but the per capita carbon consumption is in the lowest level. This conclusion provides ideas for us to establish a “mega city” and set up a high-efficient traffic frame so as to reduce carbon consumption and improve air quality. On the other hand, it is possible for China to establish “mega city’. China has a large population and cities should be bigger. China has similar area as the United States, but the population of China is about 4. Times that of the united States. The United States has coast on both eastern and western, but some areas in west of China is uninhabitable. From this perspective, China’s urban size should at least about 4. 3 times that of America’s. The biggest cities in America is New York and Los Angels; their population is more than 10 million (Go et al. , 2010). So, the largest city of China should be more than 45 million population. 2. Beijing as the basis to be developed into a “mega city” Beijing is not only the capital of China, but also the cultural and economic centre.
More than 10 million permanent population and 10 million floating population make Beijing to be the biggest city in China. On the one hand, the intercity express railway realized half- hour transmitting from Beijing to Tannin. It offers the potential for Tannin to become a satellite city of Beijing and a leap in the development of population and city size of Beijing. Developing Beijing to be a “mega city” will help speed up the development of economics in central China. The worldwide economic crisis is a drag on economic development.
Reducing unemployment is an effective method to stimulate economy. Research shows that the city is bigger and the unemployment is lower; the population intensive is greater, unemployment is lower; unemployment is lower, the city develops faster (Go et al. , 2010). 3. 3 How to reduce air pollution in “mega city” Firstly, “mega city” can realize healthy development of public transport. Only Hong Kong and Tokyo can realize public transportation profitable at present (Ha et al. , 2010). Hong Kong and Tokyo are typical mega cities and heir population densities are greatest in the world.
The enormous population makes public transportation to be lucrative. The public transportation to be lucrative is the basic way to make public transport be in benign circulation and improve constantly. Secondly,” mega city/’ can realize urban reasonable layout and function, so as to improve the efficiency of transportation. Large cities of developed countries are often divided into residential, commercial, government area and public service area, etc. In this reasonable layout, the government can accurately design large transport unction so as to simplify and optimize transportation.
At the same time, government also can concentrate on main road construction so as to make traffic much efficient. Thirdly, urban reasonable layout can realize rational division private vehicles and public transportation. In London, government offices are in the city center and private vehicles shall not enter. Only public can be used there. Paris set up a business district in Radicchio Fang, outside of the city. At the same time, the government of Paris strengthens the public transmission capacity from residential to commercial area.
These measures greatly alleviated the vehicle congestion in the city center, so as to reduce automobile exhaust emission. Conclusion During the Olympics, because the government in Beijing adopted the “even and odd-numbered license plates” and preserved part of transport, air quality obviously improved. But the “even and odd-numbered license plates” only a temporary measures, at the same time, quantity of private vehicles in Beijing increased rapidly. This increase will consume decrease from the limitation in several years. It is the time to consider a method from traffic planning to love the air pollution problem of Beijing.