Report on Sustainable Transport in China：Coordinated and Integrated Transport Development

Report on Sustainable Transport in China

China Academy of Transportation Sciences

Chapter 2

Coordinated and Integrated Transport Development

To form a modern integrated transport system represents a major part of China's efforts to pursue sustainable transport, China is promoting the integration of multiple means of transport. Through two rounds of reform of government institutions in 2008 and 2013, China has established a transport administrative structure composed of larger departments. The Ministry of Transport is in charge of the overall planning of railways, highways, waterways, civil aviation and postal services, providing strong institutional support for an integrated transport network.

I. Improving the Integrated Transport Infrastructure Network

China has a vast territory, a huge population, and an extremely imbalanced distribution of resources and labor. Therefore, to achieve sustainable development, China must build an integrated multidimensional and interconnected transport infrastructure network serving social and economic development. To this end, infrastructure construction has been strengthened and the network has expanded in scale and risen in quality.

1.Building a complete, integrated and multidimensional national transport network

To coordinate and integrate transport development, China is addressing shortcomings, improving interconnectivity, optimizing the network coverage, and boosting operational efficiency. It will improve the infrastructure network covering railway, highway, waterway, civil aviation, postal services and express delivery, and form an integrated, multidimensional transport network underpinned by trunk railways and highways and supported by waterway and civil air routes.

The railway network is extending its reach. China has accelerated the construction of high-speed rail. The network is growing ahead of schedule, now consisting of four vertical lines （Beijing-Shanghai, Beijing-Hong Kong, Beijing-Harbin, and Hangzhou-Fuzhou-Shenzhen） and four horizontal lines （Shanghai-Wuhan-Chengdu, Xuzhou-Lanzhou, Shanghai-Kunming, and Qingdao-Taiyuan）. The standard railway network is being steadily optimized. The layout and construction of the national railway network has been substantially improved.

By the end of 2020, China had a total of 146,000 km of rail in operation, of which high-speed lines represented 38,000 km, accounting for two thirds of the world's total.

The highway network has reached all parts of the country. China has accelerated work on its expressway network, completing national expressways, expanding traffic capacity for busy and crowded sections, and upgrading national and provincial trunk highways. A rural highway network with counties as centers, towns and townships as junctions, and villages as terminals, has taken shape.

By the end of 2020, China had a total of 5.2 million km of highways, of which expressways represented 161,000 km. A national highway network radiating in all directions has been completed: national and provincial trunk highways have connected all administrative units above the county level; rural highways have reached all villages, towns and administrative villages where practicable.

The waterway network has expanded. China has improved the configuration of ports and integrated port resources to create a well-defined and balanced waterway network. The construction of deep-water channels has achieved substantial progress; the role of the Yangtze River as the "golden waterway" has been expanded; shipping capacity has been increased and upgraded; both coastal and inland docks are offering more professional services.

By the end of 2020, China had 22,000 operative berths, including 2,592 berths of 10,000-tonne-class and above, accounting for 11.7 percent of the total. There were 128,000 km of navigable inland waterways, completing a national waterway network linking rivers and seas, trunk rivers and tributaries.

The civil airport network has been improved. China has further improved the network of civil airports by enhancing the functions of key regional airports, and by building, relocating, expanding and renovating a number of airports on busy main flight routes. Modern airports such as Beijing Daxing International Airport are now complete and operational; construction work has started on Ezhou Huahu Airport in Hubei Province, China's first freight airport. By the end of 2020, China had 241 certified civil airports and a total of 237,000 km of air routes and lines.

The postal service network has been expanded. Every township has a post office and every village is reachable by post. Express delivery is accessible in almost all towns and townships, and its network is expanding to an increasing number of countries and regions. A modern postal and express delivery network, covering urban and rural areas nationwide and connecting China with the rest of the world, is in place. By the end of 2020, China had 349,000 postal outlets, 224,000 express delivery outlets, and the total network length of postal and express delivery services approximated 52.8 million km.

According to the Outline on Developing Integrated National Transport Network, China will complete a national comprehensive and multidimensional transport network by 2035, featuring modern and high-quality services, smooth and convenient traffic, efficient and economical operation, and safe, smart, green and energy-intensive transport. The aims are: internationally, to improve traffic interconnectivity between China and the world; domestically, to ensure efficient and comprehensive transit between major cities and transport accessibility for county-level junctions.

In accordance with this plan, China will build a national transport network composed of six axes, seven corridors, and eight trunk lines, with a total route length of about 700,000 km （excluding the overseas sections of international land routes as well as air routes, sea routes, and postal routes）。 Therewill be 200,000 km of railways, 460,000 km of highways, 25,000 km of highgrade waterways, 27 key coastal ports, 36 key inland ports, 400 civil airports, and 80 postal and express delivery hubs.

2.Building a national multi-tiered and integrated system of transport hubs

China prioritizes the construction of comprehensive transport hubs that provide multi-tiered, integrated services. Comprehensive transport hubs have been built in cities at international, national and regional levels, with Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou serving as international hubs; international and national transport hub cities have been able to serve wider areas.

The Ministry of Transport supported the creation of a group of comprehensive transport hubs to realize convenient passenger transfer and efficient multimodal freight transport, and is now improving their layouts.

* The interconnectivity between comprehensive passenger terminals has been greatly improved; 80 percent of new passenger terminals have reduced the passenger transfer distance to less than 200 m; 68 percent of airline hubs are seamlessly connected to rail transit.

* The layout of freight hubs has been improved; the construction and renovation of railway logistics bases, port logistics hubs, air transshipment centers, express delivery logistics parks have been accelerated; freight services have been upgraded at ports, generating agglomeration effects and increasing logistics efficiency.

Transport hubs have been integrated locally to form a number of urban complexes, airport economic zones and port economic zones.

According to the Outline on Developing Integrated National Transport Network, China will build:

* a national comprehensive transport hub network integrating transport hub clusters, cities, and key ports and terminals;

* four international comprehensive transport hub clusters in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei Region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle;

* 20 international transport hub cities and 80 national transport hub cities, and a group of key national and international ports and terminals.

II. Improving Comprehensive Transport Services

China is creating an efficient, high-quality modern transport network that provides better services in diverse forms, geared to improving public satisfaction.

1.Promoting efficient and convenient transport services

China is building an interregional system for fast passenger transit, which has a large capacity and high efficiency, with high-speed rail and air services at the core.

In 2020, 22.8 percent of passengers traveled by railway, 71.3 percent by highway, 1.6 percent by waterway, and 4.3 percent by air.

* EMU trains have become the major means of railway passenger transport, carrying about 70 percent of the total number of passengers, with over 80 percent of the tickets sold online.

* The on-time arrival rate for flights has exceeded 80 percent for the past three years.

* Highway passenger transport has been upgraded, with an integrated urban-rural system prioritizing bus services.

China encourages stronger integration between various means of transport, developing intermodal transport such as highway-railway, air-railway, highway-air, and air-sea services. China is improving combined transport of passengers through one-stop ticket booking, and by creating new services such as shuttle buses to high-speed rail stations, offsite airport terminals, and luggage through-check. Hangzhou Xiaoshan International Airport and Shenzhen Bao'an International Airport have enabled luggage through-check from offsite terminals by intermodal air-highway transport. China has improved the digital management of passenger information, and established information service platforms at comprehensive passenger terminals to better serve combined transport of passengers.

2.Building a green and efficient modern logistics system

China is improving the efficiency and modal split of freight transport, shifting more bulk cargo from highways to rail and waterways, in order to pursue green and high-quality development.

* From 2016 to 2020, the railway freight transport volume increased from 3.33 billion to 4.55 billion tonnes, rising from 7.6 percent to 9.8 percent of total freight volume. Waterway freight transport volume rose from 6.38 billion to 7.62 billion tonnes, up from 14.5 percent to 14.8 percent of total freight volume. Railway and waterway play a key role in long-distance bulk freighting.

* By the end of 2020, the coal terminals at key ports along the Bohai Sea Rim, and in Shandong Province and the Yangtze River Delta, had completely shifted their coal freighting to railway or waterway; evacuation of ore containers from ports by railway, waterway and belt conveyor accounted for 61.3 percent of the total, up by 20 percent from 2017.

 China has built an efficient freight transport network, and is working on developing express delivery by rail and by air, promoting large-scale and intensive road freighting, optimizing the rural logistics network, and improving urban delivery services.

* China is developing efficient logistics featuring Internet Plus models; nearly 1,300 road freight companies operating online are exploring new business models such as urban-rural delivery, multimodal transport, integration of transportation routes, drop-and-pull transport, and cold-chain logistics. The owners of about three million freight vehicles have found a way to orders through these companies.

* China is developing specialized logistics to serve e-commerce and cold-chain businesses and move heavy and hazardous cargo.

* China has expanded the capacity and digital transformation of express delivery, giving stronger support to new business forms and models such as supply chain service, cold-chain delivery, and instant delivery.

Multimodal transport is an important means for reducing costs and increasing efficiency in the logistics industry and for pursuing sustainable development of transport. Efficient transport links have been created, such as rail-highway, air-rail, rail-waterway and river-sea transport, ship-to-ship transfer, and roll-on/roll-off shipping.

* The Notice of the Ministry of Transport and Other 17 Departments Under the Central Government on Further Developing Multimodal Transport was issued, which improved the top-level design of multimodal transport.

* China has launched 70 multimodal transport demonstration projects in 28 provinces, seeking breakthroughs in infrastructure construction, combined transport models, R&D of technology and equipment, and information interconnectivity. These projects have opened 390 transport routes, and completed multimodal transport of 14 million TEU.

* Container rail-waterway freighting increased to 6.8 million TEU in 2020, an annual average growth of 23 percent between 2016 and 2020.

3.Creating new Internet Plus business models

Internet Plus Transport is changing how people travel.

* Online car-hailing services cover 300 cities, with 20 million trips each day.

* Online bike rentals are available in 360 cities, with 19.45 million bikes in service and 45.7 million daily hires.

* There are over 50 hourly car-rental companies, with 200,000 vehicles in service.

To encourage the sound development of new business models, the Ministry of Transport has issued a succession of regulations and policies, including the Interim Measures for the Management of Online Car-Hailing Services, Measures for the Management of Passenger Car Rental Services, Guidelines on Promoting the Sound Development of Passenger Car Rental Services, and the Guidelines on Encouraging and Regulating Online Bike Rental Services, pointing out the position, direction and goals for these new businesses.

China is promoting smart transport services through the Mobility as a Service （MaaS） model. Pilot projects have been launched in Beijing, Guangzhou and Shenzhen, focusing on urban public transport, taxi services, and shared rides, to fully integrate data resource management, vehicle operations and dispatch, transport revenue clearing, aggregated payments, information services, and supervision of business operations.

* Beijing has established an integrated service platform for green transport, to provide smart, multimodal transport services.

* Guangzhou has piloted a one-stop transport service system, integrating the public transport network with online shopping and consumer services, via an integrated payment platform.

* Shenzhen has launched a MaaS project at Shenzhen Bay Eco-tech Park. The mini program, SOGO, enables passengers to plan efficient commuting routes, choose combined bus/subway services, and confirm boarding time and location in advance.

Source：<https://xxgk.mot.gov.cn/2020/jigou/gjhzs/202112/t20211214_3631118.html>