The Social Cost of Traffic Congestion and Countermeasures in Beijing

Based on the applying of congestion cost assessment methodologies, congestion cost calculation process was analyzed and construction of calculation models was deduced. According to the database of city traffic running status and Statistic Yearbook 2010 in Beijing, the social cost of Traffic Congestion was calculated. The result shows that Traffic Congestion costs about 58 billion Yuan RMB (4.22% of GDP) in Beijing in 2010, including time delay cost, extra oil combustion, traffic accident direct economic loss, vehicle loss cost, environment pollutants. The proportion of GDP is higher than the same scale cities, such as New York, London and St. Paul. The most congestion cost comes from trips by car and the time delay cost is the mainly and directly social cost. For saving of vehicle congestion, this paper suggests that government of Beijing should optimize city function construction around the urban railway station to scatter the function in central metropolitan area, and provide more hospital, school and job in nearby area of new railway station to reduce long distance trip demand.