In this most congested city in the country, navigation will get lost.

Interface journalist | Jun Tang

Interface news editor |

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In early March, Baidu Map released the 2022 China Urban Traffic Report. The first place on the congestion list is not Guangzhou, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, but Chongqing in the southwest.

In the report of Baidu Map in the past four years, Chongqing ranked first in the traffic congestion list for three years. In 2021, Chongqing was not the first in the congestion list, but only dropped to the second place.

From the perspective of commuting time, Chongqing is also in the forefront. In the ranking of average commuting time in 2022, Beijing ranked first, with an average of 42.8 minutes for one-way commuting and 37.8 minutes for Chongqing.

Chongqing citizens are also quite concerned about the congestion problem. According to a study, as much as 38% of the messages of Chongqing online politics platform in 2020 are related to traffic operation, and nearly half of them are related to road operation, followed by bus and parking problems.

In 2016, the proportion of traffic content on Chongqing’s online political platform was only 22%, and it increased by 16 percentage points in the four years to 2020, reflecting that the local traffic problem may be more serious.

Just looking at the central city, Chongqing is not the most populous city, and its population density is lower than many cities. Why has it become the most blocked city in China?

Interface journalists inquired about many research papers and found that multiple factors, such as terrain, vehicle ownership, traffic management and evaluation indicators, created the "first traffic jam" in Chongqing.

Chongqing is a famous mountain city, which is located in the valley and hilly area where Jialing River and Yangtze River flow. The urban land resources are relatively short, and the space of the whole city is constrained by topography, so the urban roads are built on the mountain. The complex terrain leads to the complex road network structure in Chongqing, and netizens often ridicule it. When traveling in Chongqing, the navigation map will get lost.

Compared with plain cities, Chongqing lacks wide and straight roads, mostly winding "trails" or various elevated roads. The more elevated, the more interchanges there will be. In addition, in the main urban area of Chongqing, the branch roads are mostly freestyle road networks, many roads are not connected, and there are many staggered intersections, which cannot form effective microcirculation.

Local citizens’ messages on Chongqing’s online political platform show that problems such as unreasonable road network planning, slow expressway, long detour distance and serious road damage in the core area often appear. As a result, the speed of the vehicle will naturally slow down.

Another major factor of Chongqing’s serious congestion stems from the ultra-high number of motor vehicles. In 2021, the number of motor vehicles in Chongqing has exceeded 5 million, ranking third in the country, second only to Beijing and Chengdu. With the social and economic development, the release of the interests of the automobile industry and the improvement of residents’ living standards, the number of motor vehicles in Chongqing continues to increase, with an average annual growth rate of over 14%.

In the central city of Chongqing, the proportion of people who use private cars to travel has reached 35.3%, and the concentration of vehicles within the inner ring is high. The number of cars used on weekdays has reached 1.003 million, and it is still growing at an average annual rate of 8.8%. People are complaining about traffic jams, but they are reluctant to reduce their own cars.

In contrast, the speed of urban road construction in the central city of Chongqing grows at an average annual rate of 4.6%, which is less than 1/3 of the growth rate of car ownership. Only relying on traffic infrastructure construction to alleviate congestion is unsustainable, and more effective traffic management needs to be upgraded.

Local citizens also put forward many opinions on traffic management. The content of the online political platform shows that problems such as occupying roads in construction, parking indiscriminately, tricycle driving at will, and vendors occupying roads are outstanding; Some factors, such as inconvenient transfer between rail transit and ground bus, too long waiting time for ground bus and serious congestion during peak hours, have affected the proportion of public transport trips.

In addition, the evaluation method also affects the congestion ranking. The congestion ranking of Baidu map and Gaode map is based on the peak travel delay index of road network. When the actual driving speed is the same, the greater the free-range speed index value, the higher the congestion index. For example, if the driving speed is the same on the ordinary road and the elevated expressway, it will be judged that the elevated expressway is more congested because of its higher design speed.

Due to terrain factors, the road resources in the central city of Chongqing are relatively limited, so the construction standard of skeleton road network is high, and there are many elevated and interchanges, so the overall design speed of urban roads is higher, which leads to more traffic jams when the actual speed is the same.

For example, in the report of Baidu Map in 2022, the actual speed during the rush hour in Chongqing is 29.84km/h, the waiting time at intersections is 40.06 seconds, the actual speed during the rush hour in Haikou is 29.09km/h, and the waiting time at intersections is 56.03 seconds. Cars in Haikou travel slower and wait longer at intersections, but the congestion ranking is far lower than that in Chongqing, ranking 19th in 2020.

Due to the evaluation criteria, the congestion ranking may be different from the actual travel experience of local citizens, but it can also reflect the problem to some extent. Now, the traffic reports of Baidu map and Gaode map not only focus on congestion, but also add more dimensions such as green index, safety index and new energy index.

Wearing the hat of "the first city" all the year round, Chongqing began to actively control traffic congestion. Since March, 2021, Chongqing has implemented the "15+1" peak-hour traffic scheme for bridges and tunnels, that is, during the morning and evening peak hours on weekdays, 15 bridges and one tunnel are restricted to private car numbers.

The Yangtze River runs through the urban area of Chongqing, and these 16 river-crossing passages play an important role in Chongqing’s road network. By restricting more than a dozen bridges and tunnels, the overall traffic situation in Chongqing has been improved. According to the news released by Chongqing, the effect of the scheme is obvious after one year’s implementation. The total number of cars in the central city decreased by 6.1% during the peak hours of working days, and the speed in the peak hours increased by 6.8%, of which the speed of the cross-peak bridge and tunnel increased by 20%.

Some researchers suggest that Chongqing can also carry out control strategies such as congestion charging, purchase restriction, reasonable setting of traffic lights, and exploring the link between car use frequency and motor vehicle insurance concessions to further alleviate traffic congestion.

At the same time, scientific and technological means such as big data are increasingly being used in traffic management. Shenzhen used to be a frequent visitor to the TOP10 list of traffic jams. It took off the hat of "blocking the city" through the intelligent traffic management system and ranked 25th in 2022.

Some researchers suggest that Chongqing should increase the coverage of rail transit and bus rapid transit, implement the construction of bus lanes, optimize rail transit and bus transfer and other measures to improve the attractiveness of public transport.

references

Xie Xiaozhong. Analysis of the "First Blockage" of Road Traffic in Chongqing Central City and Countermeasures.Chongqing Architecture, 2022,21(09):25-27.

Jia Liansheng, Zhou Jinjun. Analysis of the causes of urban trunk road congestion and research on the improvement countermeasures-A case study of Chongqing’s main urban area. Logistics Engineering and Management, 2019,41(06):87-88.

Fu Jun. Analysis and Countermeasures of Traffic Congestion in Chongqing City. Resource Information and Engineering, 2016,31(04):154-155.