A Study On The Vehicle Quota Policy In Shanghai

The growth of urban vehicle number not only reduces the speed of urban traffic and damages the quality of the use of transport resources,but also produces negative externalities of air pollution.In order to maintain the utility of all road users and reduce the external effects of road occupancy,Shanghai Municipal Government has adopted some restrictions on the access to urban transport in the process of providing public goods for road traffic to relieve the congestion problem.In 1994,Shanghai issued a quota auction policy for private vehicles,in which vehicles need permission to get into the central city expressway.The quotas were allocated according the bidding price and time once a month.Also there are supplementary measures for vehicles of companies and government agencies.Over more than 20 years of implementation,Shanghai has been amending the policy to obtain a clear effect.But some negative effects also caused social controversy.For example,the legitimacy of the auction policy,the non-control of new energy vehicles and suburban license vehicles,the most expensive iron plate controversy of the auction price.In particular,after the implementation of the "warning price" system in 2014,the bidding price of the first stage which exceeds the warning price is invalid.Although the final auction price is limited,the bidding difficulties greatly improved,and the auction success rate dropped to 3% to 5%,Even if you were willing to pay high prices,you can not successfully get the quota.Through the review of the emergence and development of the policy,this paper analyzes the actual social effect and the shortcomings of the implementation of the policy.From the perspective of public regulation theory,and through domestic and international policy comparison,this paper learns from the experience of London and Singapore,and puts forward some recommendations to improve the Shanghai vehicle quota policy.In the short run,fine tune the control policy,cancel the warning price restrictions policy,simplify the auction rules,introduce a new kind of quota with limited period,and optimize restrictions on the quota transfer policy.In the long run,replace the auction policy with the congestion fee policy,control the overall number of new energy vehicles and vehicles of suburban or other provinces’ plates.An independent quota system could be applied to new energy vehicles and suburban vehicles.A license mechanism could be introduced for vehicles of suburban or other provinces’ plates.By those measures,the increase of vehicle number may be slowed down.