A Study Of Highway Public Events Emergency Management Of Guangdong Province

As China keeps gaining economic development, the living standards and demands of its people also increase correspondingly. The highways, a vital measurement of socio-economic development of a particular region, are playing a more and more important role in national economy, public transportation, national security strategies and social development and other aspects, making huge contributions to promoting economic development within the region, altering people’s lifestyles, thus becoming a popular choice for people to travel around. The development of highways in China has picked up great speed in recent years. Guangdong province in particular has achieved the target mileage of 6000.8 kilometers by September 2014, the nation’s first to reach highway mileage of more than 6000 kilometers. However, the emergency management system falls short of the requirements of coping with the public events on the highways, whose developments are starting late, short-timed and rushed.On the highway, the vehicle are running at high speed with strong force. Plus the full-closed and insulated road design, if there being any accident, it would be quite difficult to come to rescue. What’s worse, there might be chained accidents, causing great loss and destruction of people’s lives and belongings and even threatening social stability. So it is extremely urgent to establish a systematic and scientific emergency management system in order to actively prevent public events on the highway, properly and efficiently handling public events and diminishing their negativity upon the public, reducing to the minimum the injuries and losses of the public and satisfying their needs of public transportation, and playing to the fullest the role of highways in national economy.Inspired by “smart transportation, safe transportation construction” raised in a national transportation conference in 2014, this paper is to research into the emergency management institution for public events of Guangdong province and its responsibilities, early warning and response mechanism as well as its practical results under the guidance of relevant public management and with the methodology of theoretical framework, literature review, and comparative and case studies. Based on the practices of a certain highway transportation group in Guangdong province and some successful experiences of other provinces in China as well of those of other developed countries, this paper has come up with the following suggestions: establish and improve laws and regulations regarding public events to provide policy guarantee for handing them; build up an active prevention and early warning mechanism; set up a comprehensive emergency management platform for the coordination and unification of response; develop scientific, reasonable and operational emergency plans, and organize regular exercises; play to the fullest information sharing and resource integration; assemble a professional emergency management team and adequate and available material reserves; increase the public awareness to participate in dealing with public events and thus “create an transportation environment where everyone is concerned”, as to further promote the optimization of highway public event emergency management system of Guangdong province, reduce public events, accelerate and better their disposals, and ultimately create a safe and smooth transportation environment for all the drivers and the passengers on the highway.