China Daily Global Edition (USA)
TOLLWAYS, SOLAR-POWERED ROADS BOOST TRANSPORTATION
High-tech materials, new funding streams are paying dividends
“I still remember the hardship my peers and I experienced when building the Shanghai-Jiading Expressway,” said Zhou Liang, chief engineer with the Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute.
The 20.4-kilometer-long expressway — known as the Hujia Highway for short — was built in 1984. It was the first national highway project built in the Chinese mainland, and connected Shanghai’s Jiading district with the city’s downtown.
Zhou, who was involved with the project from the beginning, said the work was incredibly challenging because of unregulated construction standards. Equipment, financial support and technologies were also lacking, making for inefficient infrastructure construction.
“Negative voices were raised against the proposal at the time, allowing for much higher costs but unpredictable economic returns,” he said. “Objectors said the (low) number of private cars at the time could not satisfy the normal operations of such a highway.”
Technology was the key problem, according to Zhou. “We didn’t have any advanced equipment, such as drones for example, to help us conduct surveys, so we walked step by step from Jiading to the urban center to measure the road by hand,” he said.
“In addition, expressway signs had not yet been standardized. We drove a car on an airfield runway at speeds reaching 120 km per hour to see how big the signs would have to be so drivers could read them clearly.”
With an investment of 230 million yuan ($33.5 million) from the Shang-
hai government, the Expressway opened to traffic in October, 1988, marking the start of China’s massive plan to upgrade the highway network.
Growing network
In the early 1980s, the length of China’s highway network was no more than 900,000 km, according to the Ministry of Transport.
By the end of last year, the total length of highways open to traffic was about 4.8 million km, about 5.2 times the length in 1984 when highway construction work was in the early stage of development, the Ministry of Transport said.
Last year, expressways attaining modern transportation standards accounted for 136,500 kilometers of the total length of highways nationwide, the longest network in the world, the ministry said.
Expressway construction really began to take shape in 2005 when the ministry introduced the “7918” network, which included seven radial expressways from Beijing, nine north-to-south expressways, and 18 east-to-west expressways.
The network was upgraded with two more north-to-south expressways after the ministry released the National Highway Network Planning (20132030) program in 2013. The network was then renamed “71118”.
Investment in highway construction was 2.1 trillion yuan last year, a rise of 18.2 percent from 2016, and funding for expressways exceeded 900 billion yuan, a rise of 12.4 percent from the year before, according to the ministry.
The rapid development of the highway network has greatly improved traffic capacity and efficiency.
Cheng Xinguang, a 50-yearold from Jixi county, Xuancheng city, Anhui province, has been impressed by the great changes highway construction work has brought for him.
Before the expressway connecting Jixi and Hangzhou city, Zhejiang province, opened in 2014, Cheng used to drive on winding mountain roads for more than three hours to reach his hometown in Zhejiang and visit his parents’ house.
“The road I used to drive on has many curves which made it extremely dangerous when encountering large trucks and cars,” he said.
“Now it is much safer and easier to get home, and it only takes about 90 minutes.”
Tollways
However, the highway construction program has also sparked an argument about sections that include tollways.
Nationwide, the length of tollways had reached 163,700 km by the end of last year, accounting for 3.4 percent of the total length of the nation’s highways, according to the ministry.
The nation’s tollways attracted combined investment of more than 8 trillion yuan from 2010 until the end of last year, the ministry said. However, their combined deficit reached 403 billion yuan last year.
The Jihuang Expressway, a tollway that runs from Jixi to Huangshan city, connects Anhui and Zhejiang. Construction finished in 2014.
Cheng, along with most of his peers who use this expressway, cares more about safety than the toll fees he pays at the various booths.
“It costs 40 yuan for a single trip of about 110 km,” he said. “It’s not expensive, because the shorter distance means I use less fuel and my vehicle is not getting worn out on the highway compared with the poorly maintained twisting mountain road,” he said.
“The toll fee, from my perspective, is necessary for the maintenance and operation of a healthy and convenient highway. I pay the money for a safer trip — it’s worth it.”
Zhao Jian, a professor of transportation and economics at Beijing Jiaotong University, said levying toll fees is the key to highway maintenance as completed highways and those still being constructed fall under the policy of “Loans for construction, paid back by toll fees.”
Approved by the State Council, China’s Cabinet, in 1984, the policy helps to attract investment for highway construction from the central and local governments and social groups, which eases the financial burden on the central government.
Under the policy, toll fees are levied by the government to repay the debt used in tollway construction.
“The operation of tollways remains in the red, especially those in Central and West China, which should be emphasized by the government to secure a healthy environment for highway operations,” Zhao said.
He added that the preferential policy to allow cars with fewer than seven seats to pass through toll stations free of charge during holidays, the National Day holiday, for example, introduced in 2016 is unreasonable, while more feasible measures should be taken to benefit both drivers and highway operators.
Wang Limei, general secretary of the China Road Transport Association, said the policy should be improved to allow truck and coach drivers free access to highways during holidays.
“The upgrade of the highway network matters greatly to the transport industry,” she said.
“But the policy upsets coach and truck drivers as it’s only available to small-sized private cars. Coaches offer services to more passengers than small cars, which is more environmentally friendly.”
Zhou, from the Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute, said toll fees could gradually be abolished.
“Traffic capacity in northwestern China is lower than in the east, so toll fees are key to helping the government repay the construction debts,” he said.
“However, highways with higher returns — the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway, for example — can open to the public for free, and we can explore other methods, like levying taxes on car purchasers to balance the operating costs.”
Zhou said abolishing toll fees can’t be achieved overnight, only gradually. “The Shanghai-Jiading Expressway changed into a toll-free highway in 2012. Though the economic benefits fell in the short term, the move will bring greater benefits to residents, both in Shanghai and Jiading, as their trips will cost less. That will help boost economic development.”
New technology
New technologies, especially those that benefit the environment, will also bring greater benefits in the long term.
The first photovoltaic road, in which current is generated when the surface is exposed to light, was completed in Jinan, Shandong province, in November, and marked a breakthrough in highway construction.
Zhang Hongchao, a professor of road engineering at Shanghai’s Tongji University who developed the core technology for photovoltaic road construction, said highways, including expressways, will be developed into ecological “smart ways”, while photovoltaic roads are a new form of eco-friendly tech.
“The idea of building a photovoltaic road was initiated by a tech amateur in 2006,” he said. “I’ve done research since 2013 after being inspired by the idea back in 2009.”
He said the photovoltaic road project built in Shandong attracted investment totaling 50 million yuan from Qilu Transport Development Group in Jinan about two years ago.
The 2-km-long road opened to traffic in December. It was later reported that if the hard shoulder in Shandong province, which covers 26,000,000 square meters, was replaced with a solarpowered one, more than 6 billion kilowatt hours could be generated a year.
It is hoped the road will provide extra electricity for the national grid, and may even charge electric vehicles as they travel along it.
However, the new-tech road has triggered controversies over investment and economic benefits.
Zhao, the professor from Beijing Jiaotong University, is critical of the photovoltaic road.
“The investment is much greater than the average for highway construction, while the practical performance has yet to be tested,” he said.
“In addition, the economic returns are also hard to meet, and will put a greater financial burden on the government and highway operators.”
Zhou, from the Shanghai Urban Construction Design and Research Institute, said eco-friendly materials may be a better entry point for newtech highway construction.
“Solar energy and ecological materials from steelmaking or coal-fired waste are ideal materials,” he said. “The solarpowered road experiment still has a long way to go.”
However, Zhang, from Tongji University, said such roads have a bright future.
“It is not whimsy, but a necessary stage of new tech exploration,” he said. “What we are stressing is eco-friendly technology in highway construction, which is an objective not only for us, but a goal for engineers worldwide.”