Discussions on Some Issues of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport of China

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JOURNAL OF TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS ENGINEERING AND INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY Volume 6, Issue 6, December 2006 Online English edition of the Chinese language journal

Cite this article as: J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2006, 6(6), 1−5.

Received date: 2006-10-30 *E-mail: [email protected] Copyright © 2006, China Association for Science and Technology. Electronic version published by Elsevier Limited. All rights reserved.

Discussions on Some Issues of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport of China WU Xiao* Department of Transportation of National Development and Reform Commission, Beijing 100824, China

Abstract: The last five years witnessed a significant development in China’s transport industry. Its experiences and achievements will render an important basis and a threshold for the national transport plan of the next five years. This paper reviews the growth of the investment, the infrastructure development and the transport capacity and volume in China’s transport in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period from 2001 to 2005. It analyzes the current development trends as well as its problems. From the perspective of transport demands, it illustrates the features of the government’s Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport. The paper then proposes objectives of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport and describes the key areas of the country’s transportation development and construction. Finally, the paper makes a preliminary study on the principles and policy orientations of stipulating the corresponding supporting measures for its transport development. Key Words: development trend; planning objectives; infrastructure development; policies and measures

0 Introduction

The past five years has witnessed the most rapid development, the most remarkable attainments and the most significant changes in China’s transport history[1]. Enormous achievements have been made in the total transport facilities, transport capacity supplies and quality[2]. The “Outline” of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan approved by the National People’s Congress in March, 2006, gives priority to the development of the country’s transport[3]. All of these indicate that Chinese Government has taken transport as one of the key basic industries and will continue to give priority to its development.

This paper studies the development trend of China’s transport based on its transport development status in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period and proposes the objectives of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport accordingly. It elaborates on the construction priorities and the development of the country’s transport and introduces the principles of formulating the relevant policies and measures in hope of bringing forth some suggestions for China’s future transport

development planning.

1 General review of transport development in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period

China’s transport development status in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period is the primary basis for the study of China’s transport development trend of the next five years and a fundamental threshold of the country’s current transport planning.

The Tenth Five-Year period (i) witnessed the most rapid development, the most remarkable attainments and the most significant changes in China’s transport history; (ii) greatly expanded the total transport facilities, transport scale, transport volume and transport supplies, and improved its service quality; (iii) markedly enhanced the supporting capacity in the development of national economy; (iv) entered a new era of growth, characterized by the balanced development of various means of transport, the side-by-side advance of capacity expansion and quality improvement, and the comprehensive construction of the integrative transportation system.

WU Xiao / J Transpn Sys Eng & IT, 2006, 6(6), 1−5

The investment in the national transport had a greater increase in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period than in the Ninth Five-Year Plan period. The overall investment in the 4 transport modes in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period was far more than that in the Ninth Five-Year Plan period (see Fig.1), among which the total investment in road and water transportations exceeded the total investment in the past 51 years, and the investment in the rural road construction exceeded 400 billion Yuan, three times as much as that in the Ninth Five-Year Plan period.

Propelled by the massive transport investment, China’s transport network and transportation volume rapidly expanded in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period. The total operating mileage of all means of transport increased from 1.62 million kilometers in 2000 to 2.18 million kilometers in 2005 (see relevant data in Table 1) with the annual average growth rates of 4.6 percent and 6.5 percent for both passenger and freight dispatched.

The rapid transportation growth greatly supported the development of the national economy. The relationships between passenger and freight transportation volumes are shown in Fig. 2 and Fig. 3.

2

1.26

3.2

1.11

0

1

2

3

4

highway railway port civil aviation

Mul

tiple

of G

row

th

Fig. 1 Multiple of growth of the 4 sorts of transport modes

-5

0

5

10

15

20

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Year

Ann

ual g

row

th ra

te(%

)

GDPSocial passenger volumeSocial passenger turnover volume

Fig. 2 Growth comparison between passenger volume and GDP

-5

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005

Year

Gro

wth

rate

(%)

Social freight volumeSocial freight turnover volumeGDP

Fig. 3 Growth comparison between freight volume and GDP

From Fig. 2 and Fig. 3, it can be seen that China’s transportation, either from the perspective of freight transportation volume or passenger transportation volume, is closely related to the economic growth. Transportation volume and transportation turnover increase along with the economic growth, basically keeping the total elasticity coefficient below 1 (The case in 2004 is an exception when the turnover volumes of both passenger and freight transportations were

much greater than the growth of GDP owing to the overheated economy).

The changes in transportation intensity indicate the changes of China’s economy growth in quality and structure[1]. In terms of economic growth, transportation intensity (either its absolute transport value or transport turnover volume) is taking a downtrend; in other words, the transport volume produced by per unit of GDP is gradually declining.

Table 1 Growth and total volumes of the infrastructure construction of the transport means in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period

Highway

Total

mileage

Expressway

mileage

Railway mileage Inland waterway

mileage

Piping

mileage

Number of civil

aviation airports

Unit 10,000 Kilometers Number

2000 141 1.63 6.8 11.9 2.5 121

Tenth Five-Year period 52 2.47 0.7 0.4 1.9 24

2005 193 4.10 7.5 12.3 4.4 145


To sum up, China’s transport is currently trending towards the rapid growth in investment, infrastructure construction and transport capacity and volume, whereas the transport intensity takes on a downtrend.

2 Threshold and features of demands

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport is drawn up based on the great achievements made in China’s transportation development in the Tenth Five-Year Plan period. However, many problems do exist in China’s transportation development. The 5 main problems can be summarized as follows: (i) The effective supplies of the total transport infrastructure and capacity are inadequate and the bottlenecks still remain unsolved; (ii) The small transport network of low density traffic maintains an unbalanced development in urban and rural areas, and there exist major transport problems in both rural areas and bigger cities; (iii) Transportation equipment and management level leave much to be desired and the overall efficiency of the system and the quality of service need improving; (iv) Each means of transport is constructing its own individual system without taking into account the development of other means of transport and an integrated transport system hasn’t yet been established; (v) The task of constructing a modern integrated transport system is rather arduous.

The Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport has the following 7 features:

(1) China’s social and economic development will keep its rapid growth in the next five years, which will, on a large scale, keep demanding an increasing volume of transport.

(2) The accelerating development of industrialization and the readjustment of the industrial structure call for high efficient yet low cost service of the transport industry.

(3) The development of national economy and the readjustment of consumption patterns place greater demands on such indicators of transportation as convenience, comfort, safety.

(4) Sustainable development calls for the establishment of an integrated transportation system, that is, to integrate the allocation of transport resources in the whole society.

(5) The challenge of the economic globalization requires China to develop its transportation as part of the global transport network and to build a transportation system open to the outside world.

(6) The development of such economic zones as the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta sets forth the practical task of constructing a modern integrated regional transport system.

(7) The regional, urban and rural transport development should be planned as a whole and priority should be given to the transport development in rural areas and in the exploitation of West China.

Based on the above analysis, the growth of transport development in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport is predicted in Table 2 below.

3 Objectives and construction priority

3.1 Main tasks and planning objectives The specific requirements of transportation development set

forth in the “Outline” include making an overall plan, improving the geographical distribution of the transportation infrastructure, strengthening the linking up of various means of transport, bringing into play the combined efficiency and integral edges, and setting up a safe, convenient, expedite and high-efficient integrated transport system.

With the above requirements come the 7 main tasks: (i) accelerate the development of railway transportation; (ii) improve road network; (iii) further develop waterway transport; (iv) optimize the layout of civil airports; (v)

optimize the distribution of transportation resources; (vi) expedite the development of high technology and modern management; (vii) push forward the reform of the management system of transport industry.

The objectives of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport are (i) vigorously push forward the transport reform and development to greatly increase transportation capacity and basically reduce various restrictions that hold back transport development; (ii) attach importance to the development of both urban and rural transport infrastructure and give priority to the rural road construction to display fairness and public welfare applications of transport; (iii) innovate in the fields of transport safety and management system to meet the increased demand on the quality of transportation development; (iv) establish a framework of the integrated transport system with

Table 2 Growth rate of transport volume in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period [Unit:%]

Passenger transport Freight transport

Growth rate of transport volume 7 4.5

Growth rate of turnover volume 9.1 5.6


balanced geographical distribution, improved structure, sufficient capacity and reliable service. 3.2 Priorities in transport development

Transport infrastructure development is given the top priority in the transport construction and development in the Eleventh Five-Year period.

As far as infrastructure network is concerned, the main targets laid out in the preliminary program include 2.6 million kilometers of integrated network, among which are 0.092 million kilometers of railway network, 2.3 million kilometers of highway network, 0.13 million kilometers of inland waterway system, 0.07 million kilometers of piping network and 1500 kilometers of city light rail and metro transit systems.

The major projects of transport infrastructure development of railway, highway, waterway, and civil aviation are expounded below:

(1) Railway construction In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, railway

transportation will focus its development on the construction of (i) passenger dedicated lines; (ii) intercity rail transit systems; (iii) coal transportation passages; (iv) railway network in the Western and Central China as well as the improvement of the network in the East; (v) container transportation system, and passenger and freight transport junctions.

According to Long-and Medium-Term Railway Network Plan made in 2004[4], the high-speed railway including passenger dedicated lines is projected to reach 10,000 kilometers, forming the planned railway network of 4 trunk lines from the north to the south and 4 trunk lines from the east to the west, which contains about 2000 kilometers inter-city passenger rail transit system covering 3 regions: economic zones of Bohai Bay Rim, the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta.

Based on Long-and Medium-Term Railway Network Plan, in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, a network of 7000 kilometer passenger dedicated lines is planned to be built with the percentage of either electrified or double-track lines over 45% of the total construction. Among them are the 3 railways from Beijing to Shanghai, from Beijing to Guangzhou, and from Guangzhou to Shenzhen Port, which will be completed in about 2011. In addition, a further early-stage reasoning study will be conducted on the construction of the magnetic levitation railway from Shanghai to Hangzhou before efforts are made to start its construction.

(2) Highway construction In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, the key projects of

the highway transportation development are: (i) the construction of the framework of the national expressway network; (ii) the improvement of the national and provincial trunk line network, linking inter-provincial roads; (iii) the

construction of blacktop (or cement) roads in all towns and townships, blacktop (or cement) roads in the organizational villages in the East and Middle of China and roads in the organizational villages in the West of China. The construction of the above highway network increases the total road mileage by 0.4 million kilometers, including 24,000 kilometers expressway mileage.

According to National Highway Network Plan issued in 2004[5], the mileage of the expressway network for construction totals 85,000 kilometers, containing 7 highways extending from Beijing, 9 expressways from the north to the south, 18 expressways from the east to the west (addressed by “7918 Network”) and some other linking highways. The highway network will cover a population of 1billion people and an area that covers 85% of GDP.

At present, 30 % of the national expressway network construction has been implemented. In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, “5 expressways extending from Beijing, 2 expressways from the north to the south and 7 expressways from the east to the west”, which is part of “7918 Network”, will be constructed as key projects. More government funds need to be directed toward constructing rural roads. In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period the government will invest a total of 100 billion yuan to construct the targeted 1.2-million-kilometer mileage of new roads.

(3) Waterborne construction In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, the key waterborne

transportation projects involve (i) the improvement of the geographical distribution of the coastal ports; (ii) the construction of the transfer shipment systems of containers, coal, imported petrol, gas and iron ore to expand their Throughput capacities; (iii) the improvement of the outgoing waterway and the inland river navigational condition; (iv) the construction of the Yangtze River golden waterway and high-graded waterborne networks of the Yangtze River Delta and the Pearl River Delta to render impetus to the river and sea combined shipping and bring the inland waterborne transportation system into play; (v) the construction of Shanghai, Tianjin and Dalian international shipping centers. As is stated above, the construction and improvement of the waterway are the priorities in the waterborne transportation development. The geographical distribution of the ports is still based on the current five-big-port groups.

The main objective of port development is to expand the deepwater berth capacities of coal shipping, and the loading and unloading capacities of imported and exported material[6]. The basic coal shipping pattern in China is the transportation of coal from the north to the south and from the west to the east, and the priority is given to the construction of 7 ports in the north. The key construction of several ports for handling the import shipping of iron ore and petroleum will be implemented in East and North China, and the major project


of port construction for petroleum shipping will be preferably completed in southern China. Container port construction covers the 3 big port groups: Bohai port group, East China port group (ports of Shanghai, Ningbo and Nanjing) and the

Pearl River Delta group (Xiamen Port). In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, the important construction indicators of these port groups are shown in Table 3.

(4) Civil aviation construction In the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period, the strategies for the

civil aviation development is to (i) expand the hub airports, improve the major airports and build more regional airports; (ii) increase the density of airports in Midwest and Northeast China; (iii) further improve airway network and resolve the problems concerning air corridors and air control systems.

The 4 airports to be constructed in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, which will form a big triangle in the domestic air transport, are the major engineering projects of the civil airport development. Besides, Kunming Airport will be constructed and Urumchi Airport will be expanded. Great efforts will be made to build the two airports into international gateways. Moreover, the airport capacities of such capital cities as Hangzhou, Chengdu, Shenzhen and Xi’an will be greatly expanded. The last but not the least 30 small airports will be completed in Midwest and Northeast China. 3.3 Further suggestions on transport policies and measures

Corresponding policies and supporting measures are required to implement the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport. The following measure-framing principles and policy orientations should be established for the fulfillment of the planning objectives and construction priorities:

(1) Deepening system reform and making new breakthroughs in railway system reform.

(2) Opening transport markets further to the outside world, including civil aviation and railway transport markets, to promote fair competition.

(3) Expanding investing and financing channels, promoting the maturity of funding and financing systems of road construction, and establishing a basic framework of investing systems where the transport markets such as markets of railway and civil aviation are open to the personal capital and private capital.

(4) Encouraging scientific innovation to accelerate the scientific and technological advancement of transport industry.

(5) Popularizing energy-saving and environment-protecting transport means and vehicles to promote the sustainable

development of transport. (6) Attaching importance to the management of transport

demands and bringing forward the corresponding guiding policies and measures based on the infrastructure development.

4 Conclusion

China’s transport is in the prime time of its development. The Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport conforms to the strategic choice of its current transportation development, which is to improve the effect of traffic route choice with scientific and suitable methods[9], to build a sound basic transport network system within a relatively short time, to provide safe, high-efficient and expedite transport services at pretty low costs, and to narrow the technological and managerial disparities between China and the developed countries in the best and most efficient ways, thus achieving the ultimate goal of establishing a market-oriented, sustainable development-prerequisite, intelligent and comprehensive transport system characterized by high-speed passenger transport and highly-developed logistical goods transport.

References

[1] Wang Q Y. Outlook on Transportation Development. Beijing, China: Science and Technology Publishing House of China, 2004.

[2] Wang Q Y. On the Methods and Practice of Integrated Transport Network Planning. Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, 2005, 5(1): 11–15.

[3] Wang Q Y. Priorities in the Integrated Transport Development in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan Period. http://www.manage. org.cn/observe/200607/33912.html, 2006-07-06.

[4] Long and Medium-term Railway Network Plan. Transportation Department, National Development and Reform Commission, 2004.

[5] National Highway Network Plan. Transportation Department,

Table 3 Important indicators of China’s port construction in the Eleventh Five-Year Plan period

Project Coal Ore Crude oil Container

Main indicator Deep water berth

capacity

Loading & unloading

capacity

Loading & unloading

capacity Handling capacity

Targeted capacity 600 million tons 300 million tons 300 million tons 150 million cases


National Development and Reform Commission, 2004. [6] The Layout and Programming of National Coastal Ports.

Ministry of Communication, National Development and Reform Commission, 2006.

[7] Chen H B, Wang X, Mao B H. Sustainability assessment of urban transport policy—a case study of Beijing, China, Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, 2006, 6(3): 100–112.

[8] Zhang J F. Development and prospect of China highway, Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology, 2006, 6(3): 100–112.

[9] Chen S K, Mao B H, Ding Y, et al. A route choice model on multimodal transport network. In: Traffic and Transportation Studies. Proceedings of ICTTS 2004. Mao B H, Tian Z Z, Sun Q Y (Eds.). Beijing, China: Science Press, 2004: 411–419.

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Discussions on Some Issues of the Eleventh Five-Year Plan for Transport of China