Lottery for License Plate: A Failed Effort to Reduce Traffic Congestion

When you are driving on the streets of a large city, there are many things to worry about: the misery of parking, the rising fuel prices, or running into a bad driver. However, these issues are nothing compared with bumper-to-bumper traffic costs you hours on the road, especially when you have an appointment with a friend or doctor. This is also the case in my hometown Beijing. In fact, in 2011, my municipal government has implemented a series of regulations to solve traffic congestion. Among these, the most controversial one is a system called the “license plate lottery”, which works about the same as a regular lottery, with the winners receiving a license plate for their cars. Since 2011, the lottery becomes the only way for individuals and companies in Beijing to receive a license plate. Although the government argued that this solution can effectively end traffic congestion (Gong 2020), after almost ten years, the traffic only gets worse. This issue, along with citizens’ increasing complaints about the difficulty of acquiring license plates, eventually lead to the question: Why has the license plate lottery failed to make people’s lives more efficient?

The government first introduced the lottery in 2011 to radically reduce traffic in Beijing (Lim 2011). At that time, Beijing was one of the most gridlocked cities in the world and the average commute time is 62 minutes (Lim 2011). The lousy traffic instigated the creation of a lottery to limit the total number of cars, which in turn led to a relatively positive short-term effect, with average driving speed increases by 2.7km/h a year after the lottery (Yang et al. 2014). At first, the government intended to use a license plate lottery may seem like a meaningful regulation to reduce traffic jams. However, things become complicated when people find that the chance of winning the lottery is extremely low. The license plate lottery usually takes place every other month, and anyone who is interested in applying will need to submit their information to an online system, which randomly selects a number of applications. The government claims that the random lottery will be impartial and prevent people from cutting in lines. In this April’s lottery, only 6,366 out of 1.84 million applicants in Beijing were selected, yielding a percentage lower than 4% (Wang 2020). Some people joked that getting a license plate in Beijing is even more difficult than getting accepted to Harvard University, which has an acceptance rate of 4.7% in 2019 (Wang 2020). The policy may seem stringent, but I think it is inevitable if the city wants to control its total number of cars. After all, fewer cars may cause fewer traffic jams, and eventually promote efficiency.

If, according to Wang’s article, the low selection rate is the only problem with the license plate lottery, then people may have less dissatisfaction with this policy. Unfortunately, there are many more controversies centering around the lottery. For example, because the lottery system follows a random allocation algorithm, it does not favor anyone who files the application earlier. Another major article from Bloomberg agrees with Wang regarding the low chances of getting a license plate and adds that this policy is making people’s life inconvenient, as those who join the application earlier may still need to wait for many years to get a license plate. For example, Sandra Zhao, a Beijing resident, was unable to buy her dream car, a BMW X4 SUV, even though she has enough money to pay for it. This was because she has not yet acquired a license plate since she joined the lottery pool 5 years ago. For a person who needs a car to take care of her child and her sick mother, the lottery process seems too long for her to endure (Bloomberg 2019). Similar to Sandra, a New York Times article tells the story of Larry Li, who was also unable to get a license plate in Beijing over the past 5 years. Because in big cities such as Beijing, people often see a house and a car as must-haves before marriage. Larry was anxious that he may not be able to marry his fiance because he cannot get a license plate (Guo 2016).

Applicants like Sandra and Larry can join the lottery for 5 years without winning it, while in a more extreme circumstance, another applicant can win the lottery within 3 months. This contrast is shocking for me because while I believe the lottery is a useful way to reduce the total number of cars, I ignored the fact that it may take an extremely long and painful process for people who would want to have a license plate for important reasons. Although neither Bloomberg nor the New York Times article talked about ways to change this situation, I think my city can keep the current system while at the same time provide help for some applicants who need a car for emergency or other special reasons, this will help to make people’s lives a lot easier and control the number of cars in the meantime.

Although some people may argue that the lottery controls the total number of cars on the streets and mitigates the need for more parking lots, the lottery actually fails to serve as an efficient solution to traffic congestion because the traffic is still horrendous in Beijing, especially during rush hours on weekdays. For instance, when I was doing my internship on the west side of the city, it took me more than an hour to get through traffic, while on a day without heavy traffic, the commute only cost about half an hour. This is because the lottery only slows down the annual growth rate of cars in the city instead of taking more cars off the road. The city already has heavy traffic before the initiation of the lottery, and the license plate control is not enough to solve the problem. An article from Beijing Review pointed out that 7 years after the implementation of the license plate lottery, Beijing is still “the city with the highest mileage ratio of congestion during peak hours” in China (Li 2019). This points out that the license plate system needs to be reformed while other measures should also be taken to reduce traffic. . In some other cities in China, an auction system is in place for people to buy license plates (Nakamura 2017). However, I do not think it is the best solution as the auction drives up the cost of getting a car and creates more financial burden for people at the same time.

Many other countries and metropolises in the world are facing the same problems as Beijing, and some of them have also implemented a license plate system to reduce traffic. Mexican city, for example, has a system called Hoy No Circula, which bans drivers from driving on the road one day every week according to the last number on the license plate (Davis 2008). The regulation was initiated in 1989 to improve air quality and control traffic. However, drivers can bypass this law by having multiple cars to drive on different days. This eventually causes more air pollution and worsens traffic in the city. Interestingly enough, Beijing actually adopted the same policy in 2008 during the Beijing Olympics (Hooker 2008). The measure was initially successful and changed the traffic from moderately congested to basically smooth on the municipal congestion index (Yang et al. 2014). However, just like what happened in Mexican City, Beijing residents also start to purchase more than 1 car to dodge the regulation. This may lead to the initiation of the new license plate lottery mentioned previously.

Meanwhile, in a city-state like Singapore, the total area is too small to hold many people, needless to say allowing everyone to have cars. According to US News, the population density of Singapore is 21,628 people per square mile (Kolb 2019), which is 16 times higher than that of Beijing (Textor et al. 2020). Hence, the Singaporean government’s rule on the license plate system is even more stringent: It puts a limit on the total number of cars on the road and prohibits any increase. This means that Singaporeans who want to receive a license plate will have to wait till someone to give up the license he or she already has (Shane 2017). Given the fact that the Beijing residents have already expressed great dissatisfaction with the inefficiency and inconvenience caused by the current license plate regulation, it may be very difficult for my hometown to adopt the Singaporean solution. I used to believe that the license plate lottery can effectively reduce traffic jams. However, my personal commute experiences have suggested otherwise. The lottery system itself is not sufficient enough to end traffic congestion, and people need to look for other solutions. Drivers who already have a car should also be discouraged from driving.

The city of London serves as a good example of using regulations to discourage drivers. According to The Guardian, private cars are rarely seen in London’s city center due to the congestion charge (Topham 2020). The charge is £15 per day when people drive their private cars within the Congestion Charge zone (namely the city center) from 7 am to 10 pm. This regulation is clearly effective: When the charge was first implemented in 2003, the number of cars in London fell by 15%. Besides this, the percentage of private car trips across Greater London drops from 50% in 2003 to only 37% in 2019. This is a remarkable accomplishment since London is able to decrease its private car trips when roughly one in two people living in Greater London own or use a car. I think Beijing can also adopt this solution by having a congestion charge on private cars in the city center during rush hour. This will decrease the number of cars on the road on weekdays and lessen the congestion.

However, the congestion charge itself is too harsh and should be accompanied by other policies such as a reward system and better public transportation. The Netherlands has a regional trial to reward car drivers when they commute by bike instead of a car during peak hours (Janssen 2018). Besides, the government is also making improvements on the bicycle facilities, broaden the bicycle lanes, and provide mileage allowance for bike riders. These are the welfares that Beijing has not yet provided. The bicycle lanes in Beijing are often occupied by private cars as parking spaces (Bao 2017). Although the drivers eventually pay fines for violating the law, they tend to make the same mistake again because parking lots are scarce in the city. To address this problem, the government should consider building parking garages across the city. This will meet the need of the drivers while providing a safer and less-crowded lane for bike riders. Netherlands’ reward system should also be taken into consideration. Although it may be costly for a densely-populated city like Beijing to provide an allowance for all bike riders, the government can consider working with local shops and businesses to provide certain shopping discounts to the riders. As for drivers who choose to take public transportation during rush hours, they can receive a certain monetary incentive if they are able to keep this habit for a certain amount of days. However, Janssen’s article fails to mention that the surge in the need for public transportation may also cause potential traffic jams. This problem is mentioned in Topham’s article, and the author emphasizes that buses are more preferred for Londoners than tubes and rails (Topham 2020). However, this may not be a problem in Beijing, since Beijingers are more likely to take the subway that is never affected by traffic congestions. Beijing currently has 23 subway lines and is planning to construct more in the future so the subway can take people everywhere in the city with ease. This, along with the low cost for fares, make subways optimal for commuters. The only problem with the subway system is that it can get extremely crowded for people to get in. Hence, to continue making it the most attractive option for public transportation, the government should consider having more subway cars running every day to reduce the crowdedness.

The traffic congestion in Beijing has been a persisting problem that needs to be addressed. Although the government is unable to use a license plate lottery to solve the problem, it can adopt regulations from Britain and the Netherlands and integrate these into the city. This may hopefully reduce traffic congestions.

Works Cited:

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