Lottery for License Plate: Controversies Around the Municipal Effort to Reduce Traffic Jams
When you are driving on the streets of a large city, there are many things that you may have concerns about: the misery of parking, the rising fuel prices compared with that of the suburbs, or running into a bad driver. However, all of these issues seem less annoying when there is bumper-to-bumper traffic that costs you hours on the road, especially when you have an appointment with your friend or doctor. This is also the case in my hometown Beijing. In fact, since 2011, my city government has implemented a series of regulations to reduce 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. The lottery is currently the only way for individuals and companies in Beijing to receive a license plate. Although some people may argue that this solution can effectively end traffic congestion, after almost ten years, it is only getting 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?
At first, 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. 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.
What makes people complain the most about the lottery is that it may select applicants who do not want to have a car immediately. A research pointed out that while some residents enter the lottery, they are just taking the spot and may not buy a car as soon as possible (Yang, Liu, Qin, Liu, 2014). This phenomenon causes discontent among many drivers since they believe the lottery should be built on a first-come, first-serve basis. Those who keep joining the lottery pool for many years probably have a more urgent need to use the car compared with those who just joined. In order to solve this kind of problem, some applicants in Beijing ask their family members to join the lottery together to increase the chance of winning. In some cases, a family can even win more than once. However, for individual applicants who do not have their families in Beijing, this measure will put them at disadvantage. An article by Yilin Chen from Caixin Global describes people’s discontent by quoting a fuming netizen who said: “So I don’t deserve a car if I’m not married?”(Chen 2020). This shows the frustration of many Beijing citizens who have not yet won the license plate lottery. 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 also drives up the cost of getting a car and creates more financial burden for people at the same time.
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. 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 indicates that the lottery is not only causing inconvenience to many citizens, but also ineffective to reduce traffic jams.
The government of Beijing has announced that a lottery reform will take place next June that will prioritize families who have multiple generations living under the same roof (Wang 2020). However, aside from this, none of the sources provide viable solutions for traffic congestion. I used to think that controlling the number of cars via the license plate lottery is the best way to reduce traffic jams. However, after reading the articles about it, I find that it is unfortunately not the case. People want to own private cars because these are more convenient than public transportations. Hence, maybe there some improvements that can be made on municipal public transportations to encourage people to drive less. For instance, the city can lower the fare for different public transportations, provide larger spaces, more seats, and increase the number of buses and subways to accommodate people’s needs. In the meantime, citizens who own a license can also receive rewards for taking public transportation during rush hours. By taking these measures along with the lottery, hopefully, the city will be able to reduce traffic congestions.
Works Cited:
- Guo, Owen. “Want to Drive in Beijing? Good Luck in the License Plate Lottery.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 28 July 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/07/29/world/asia/china-beijing-traffic-pollution.html.
- Li, Qing. “Solving Traffic Congestion.” Solving Traffic Congestion — Beijing Review, 2019, www.bjreview.com/Nation/201912/t20191230_800188769.html.
- Nakamura, Yu. “Bidding Wars Drive up License Plate Prices in China.” Nikkei Asia, Nikkei Asia, 26 Dec. 2017, asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Bidding-wars-drive-up-license-plate-prices-in-China.
- News, Bloomberg. “In Beijing, You Have to Win a License Lottery to Buy a New Car.” Bloomberg.com, Bloomberg, 27 Feb. 2019, www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2019-02-27/in-beijing-you-have-to-win-a-license-lottery-to-buy-a-new-car.
- Wang, Qi. “Beijing to Release New License Plate Lottery Policy.” Global Times, 1 June 2020, 22:59:29, www.globaltimes.cn/content/1190224.shtml.
- Yang, Jun & Liu, Ying & Qin, Ping & Liu, Antung. (2014). A review of Beijing׳s vehicle registration lottery: Short-term effects on vehicle growth and fuel consumption. Energy Policy. 75. 10.1016/j.enpol.2014.05.055.
- Yilin, Chen. “Trending in China: Families Jump the Queue For Beijing Car License Plates, Setting Off Debate.” Caixin Global — Latest Business and Financial News on China, U.S. Trade War and Negotiations, Breaking News, Headlines and Developments, 3 June 2020, 18:07, www.caixinglobal.com/2020-06-03/trending-in-china-families-jump-the-queue-for-beijing-car-license-plates-setting-off-debate-101562682.html.
