Create safe, convenient, efficient, green and economic sustainable transportation

Transportation is the thread of economy and the link of civilization. Sustainable transportation is an important part of high-quality development.

Recently, the Global Sustainable Transport Summit Forum (2023) with the theme of "Sustainable Transport: Working Together to Boost Global Development" was held in Beijing and achieved fruitful results. During this forum, China put forward the Joint Action Initiative of Ministers of Transport at the Global Sustainable Transport Summit Forum (the Beijing Initiative), calling on all parties to take active action and work together to create safe, convenient, efficient, green and economic sustainable transport. The forum also released the 2022 China Sustainable Transport Development Report (hereinafter referred to as the Report).

Sustainable transportation has made great progress

Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China's sustainable transportation has made great progress, and now it has entered a new stage.

"From the hardware point of view, the modern high-quality comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network is accelerating to take shape." Li Yang, Vice Minister of Transport, said recently that China has the world's largest high-speed railway network, highway network, postal express network and world-class port group, and the planned national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network "six axes, seven corridors and eight channels" has basically taken shape. In addition, China's transportation innovation capacity and strength have been fully improved, green and low-carbon development has achieved positive results, and international cooperation in transportation has continued to deepen and consolidate.

The Report displays the latest progress of sustainable transportation in China and shares the practice of sustainable transportation development in China in eight aspects: infrastructure, transportation equipment, transportation services, open cooperation, safety emergency, scientific and technological innovation, green development, and traffic governance. Among them, in terms of traffic governance, in 2022, China will continue to deepen reform in key areas of transportation, accelerate the construction of a unified and open transportation market, and steadily improve the soft power of transportation development.

The Report shows that China has deepened the reform of comprehensive administrative law enforcement in transportation, and completed the reform tasks of institutional merger, responsibility integration, and personnel transfer. We will promote the implementation of a standardized long-term mechanism for law enforcement, carry out regular investigation, correction and rectification of prominent problems in the field of law enforcement, and implement a three-year action to improve the quality and ability of law enforcement teams. The differentiated toll collection of expressways shall be promoted by road sections, vehicle types, time periods, entrances and exits, directions and payment methods. By the end of 2022, a total of 29 provinces (no toll roads in Hainan and Tibet) had issued 250 differentiated toll policies for expressways.

We promoted the implementation of the management of the list of administrative licensing items, formulated implementation specifications for 67 administrative licensing items in the field of transportation, and formulated guidelines for 38 ministerial administrative licensing items. Promote the expansion and efficiency increase of "trans provincial general office", and add a batch of government service items such as "inquiry and verification of shipping companies' compliance certificates" into the "trans provincial general office" items. We continued to expand the scope of application services for electronic road transport licenses, and generated 5.39 million electronic licenses. More than 8.15 million ordinary road freight vehicles have handled annual audit business online.

Sharing sustainable transport development plans

The railway is the main artery of the national economy and an important support for sustainable development. The "China Plan" for the sustainable development of railway shared during the forum attracted much attention.

In recent years, China's railways have comprehensively implemented the concept of innovative, coordinated, green, open and shared development, and the railway landscape has undergone profound changes. The operating mileage has increased from 98000 km in 2012 to 155000 km in 2022, of which the high-speed railway has increased from 9000 km to 42000 km, and the electrification rate has increased from 52.3% to 73.8%. A railway network with reasonable layout, wide coverage, clear hierarchy, efficient configuration and international connectivity has basically been built, forming high-speed railway engineering construction, equipment manufacturing The operation management technology system has significantly improved the supply capacity, service quality and safety level of railway transportation, and provided a "China solution" for the development of world rail transit.

According to Fei Dongbin, Director of the National Railway Administration, China's railways actively promote the transformation of the development mode, the level of greening of railway infrastructure and technical equipment continues to improve, railway energy consumption and emissions of major pollutants continue to decrease, the level of integrated development of digital technology and railway business is accelerating, and the technical system, data system and standard system of intelligent railways are initially established, We are stepping into a new era of high-quality development.

In terms of sustainable development of postal services, China's practice is also commendable. Zhao Min, Deputy Director of the State Postal Administration, said that China's postal industry adheres to the concept of sustainable development as one of the important principles of industry development, improves the system of laws, regulations, standards and policies, pays attention to the empowerment of scientific and technological innovation, and actively contributes to serving the society, developing the economy, protecting the environment and other aspects.

Wang Feng, director of the Development Research Center of the State Post Office, said that the postal industry, with the advantages of wide network coverage and large population, actively implements the green low-carbon development strategy, builds the most advanced transportation network in the world, has the largest energy fleet in many countries, and provides a variety of low-carbon products and services.

Fully promote sustainable transportation development

There are still many practices of such sustainable transportation development. According to the Report, China's transportation will adhere to the principle of connecting with the world and the times, promote the sustainable development of global transportation, promote global connectivity, serve to ensure the stability and smoothness of the global logistics supply chain, promote the development of the world economy, and make due contributions to the promotion of global development initiatives, the implementation of the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, and the building of a community with a shared future for mankind.

According to Li Yang, in the next step, China will promote sustainable transportation development around the direction of sustainable transportation development in the process of accelerating the construction of a transportation power. We will work hard in five areas: infrastructure, transport services, innovation driven, green and low-carbon, and international cooperation to promote sustainable transport development.

"China Railway is striving to be a pioneer of Chinese style modernization." Fei Dongbin said that he is willing to deepen practical cooperation and share development dividends with the world railway industry with a more open attitude.

Zhao Min said that he hoped that everyone would join hands to promote governments and postal express enterprises to accelerate their actions, and contribute to better implementing the 2030 UN Agenda for Sustainable Development and accelerating the realization of the global postal sustainable development goals.

key word: traffic development sustainable development Railway