Traffic jam eased in most Chinese cities in Q2

Nearly 80 percent of Chinese cities saw an easing in traffic jams in the second quarter of the year, mainly thanks to an online car-hailing service and shared bicycle service, according to a report released yesterday.

The report was released by Amap, a major mapping and navigation platform, along with China Academy of Transportation Sciences, the Research Center for Sustainable Transportation set up by Tsinghua University and Daimler, Alibaba Cloud and Ofo.

It showed that, in the quarter, the number of traffic jams in many Chinese cities dropped sharply.

Fifteen cities recorded a drop of more than 8 percent in terms of traffic easing, with Tianjin, Qingdao and Wuhan taking the top three spots. It was the first time such statistics had shown a downward trend since Amap started to survey traffic flows in 2014.

Among the 100 cities in the report, 77 percent witnessed significant traffic easing, especially among first and second tier cities. Even Beijing, notoriously for “forever jam,” recorded a drop of more than five percent in the index on a year-on-year basis.

However, the remaining 23 percent of Chinese cities surveyed saw the worse traffic jams. Most are third or fourth tier cities. The top three cities with the largest rise in traffic jams are Qingyuan, Zhaoqing and Hong Kong. Qingyuan’s traffic jam situation index rose by 12.9 percent.

The report said less traffic jam in most cities is due to new policies involving an online car-hailing services and shared bicycle services, as well as improvement in the urban road networks and efficient internet-aided traffic management.