China Traffic Jam: An Expert on What It All Means
By Jonathan Welsh
- Getty Images
- Truckers wait for a break in the days-long traffic jam near Beijing.
What is the deal with that huge traffic jam in China? The epic snarl has attracted and confounded so many, Driver’s Seat decided to consult an expert to sort out what it all means.
In his bestselling 2008 book “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us),” Tom Vanderbilt examined road development, driving habits, and trends and patterns in traffic flow, among other things.
The Wall Street Journal asked the author a few questions about how the monumental traffic jam near Beijing reflects broader traffic trends and what it could mean for the future of driving in the U.S.
The Wall Street Journal: Do you see patterns in the Chinese traffic jam that are familiar? Could the same thing happen in the U.S.?
Tom Vanderbilt: From what I can tell, this was something of a “perfect storm,” traffic-wise — you have a road under construction in a remote area that is experiencing a frenetic burst of economic activity. There are other cases that have been extreme —the last weekend in France in August, for example, when everyone’s returning from holiday, or the episode in Pennsylvania earlier this year when extreme icing stranded a huge number of drivers for a dozen hours.
But we should also remember the ‘non-linear nature’ of traffic: One stalled vehicle on a two-lane road can cut the entire capacity in half, because of the bottleneck. It doesn’t take much to start a jam, and it takes longer for drivers to emerge from it than it takes them to get into it.
But I saw a comment from a truck driver that was telling: “Everybody has to use this road as the other is too expensive, it should be free.” That’s the root of the problem here. When a scarce good is under-priced, we trade the savings in money for costs in time — more people will queue for it. The other road may be overpriced, but I can guarantee that no traffic problem has ever been solved by making a crowded road free.
Does the traffic congestion in China today reflect more of the past or future of traffic in the U.S.?
I think we’ve moved past what’s happening in China. One, where China is on a massive upward rise in motorization, we’ve seen in the U.S. declines in vehicle ownership and annual vehicle miles traveled. Some of this reflects the economic turndown, but some researchers argue we’ve basically reached saturation — the last census found more cars than people. We’ve also gotten smarter, through much painful experience, about managing “non-recurring” congestion, like during construction — working at night, closing roads entirely to get the job done faster, extensive warning campaigns. I’m not sure any of those things were present on the road to Inner Mongolia.
Is it a case of the road system needing to catch up with the volume of cars, or is that an oversimplification?
It’s always tough to say what the “natural” demand for traffic on a road is because the road influences the traffic. And in many cases, China’s road network wasn’t intended for the level of motorization currently going on.
How much worse might the overall traffic situation get in China?
Considering how low the ownership rate is — just 63 million a year ago — I’d say congestion is going to be a growth market in China for some time.
For more on the China traffic jam, go to our fellow blog, Driver’s Seat:
China Traffic Jam: An Expert on What It All Means
Chinese Traffic Jam Stretches 60 Miles, Ten Days
China’s 60-Mile Traffic Jam Is Breaking Up
By MICHAEL WINES
After 10 days of bumper-to-bumper stop-and-start congestion, a 60-mile-long, 10,000-vehicle traffic jam on a major freeway west of Beijing has been broken up, Chinese traffic authorities said on Tuesday.
The state television network CCTV said traffic had returned to normal on the Beijing-Zhangjiakou freeway, which stretches from the capital’s northwest suburbs to inner Mongolia. But traffic authorities in Zhangjiakou, about 90 miles northwest of Beijing, said the road remained crowded and that a long line of trucks was waiting at the Mongolia border for permission to enter the highway.
News reports said some drivers were trapped in the jam for days, and roadside residents, weaving on bicycles amid the stalled vehicles, made a killing by selling them food.
“The sellers come offering to sell water at crazy prices, but if you said ‘no’ or complained about the price they threaten to break your shields,” one drivertold The Telegraph.
The freeway, favored by tourists visiting a popular stretch of the Great Wall, has become more crowded since large coal reserves were discovered in inner Mongolia, and trucks began hauling coal to Beijing-area power plants. Traffic came to a halt after workers began repairs on the road last week. Congestion is likely to continue until road work ends in mid-September, authorities said.
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