Shenzhen introduces lanes for carpooling
Print Edition
SOUTH China’s Shenzhen City in Guangdong Province will introduce a carpool lane limited to vehicles with at least one passenger during rush hour on working days.
The high-occupancy vehicle lane, or HOV lane, will open on Binhai Road, a freeway connecting the city’s Nanshan and Futian districts, traffic authorities announced on Tuesday.
Small vehicles with no more than nine seats must carry at least two occupants, including the driver, in order to drive in the lane from 7:30am to 9:30am, and from 5:30pm to 7:30pm from Monday to Friday. One passenger who is at least 12 years old must sit in the front seat.
A trial will start on April 18 before the lane opens officially on April 25. Apart from a 300-yuan (US$46.3) ticket, violations will be recorded on drivers’ personal credit records, which can affect employment and the ability to obtain a loan, according to officials.
Currently, traffic flow on Binhai Road is nearly 7,000 passenger cars per hour at peak hours, with around 74.2 percent of vehicles carrying only the driver.
Since HOV lanes were first introduced in the US in the late 1960s, they have been adopted by many countries, including Canada, Australia and New Zealand, but are rare in China.
Shenzhen, which borders Hong Kong, has more than 3 million vehicles. Vehicles have become the largest contributor of pollutants, responsible for 70 percent of the city’s air pollution, according to the city government.
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