Evaluate of the Effects of Car Ownership Policies in Chinese Megacities: A Contrastive Study of Beijing and Shanghai

摘要

At the beginning of the catching up phenomenon of personal motorization in China, twocompletely different types of car ownership policies were implemented in megacities: onewas “no intervention policy” adopted in Beijing; the other was “license quota policy”adopted in Shanghai. This provides an exclusive opportunity to examine the impacts ofpolicy on car ownership and usage. The effects of the two types of policies on carownership level and process delay of personal motorization were examined. The growthpattern of car ownership without intervention was estimated based on city-level aggregateddata and the Principal Component Analysis. The result indicates that income is thedominant factor driving the growth of car ownership in China when the income increasesfrom a lower level to a higher one. The forecast result in Shanghai indicates that at leasttwice the number of actual ownership has been suppressed by the limitation policy.Furthermore, the limited car ownership policy also delays the process of personalmotorization. The extension of time window gapping from the higher car ownership levelprovides the authorities with more time and chances to improve alternative transportservices to fulfill the motorized travel demand. The practical experience in Shanghai andthe public attitude responses in Beijing also emphasize the importance of other supportingmeasures rather than the limited car ownership policy and the opportunity equity for allgroups.