This is Beijing-Beijing English blog

Government departments in Beijing are actively reducing car use following the implementation of the new traffic rules for the Olympics.

According to the municipal government, 30 percent of government-owned cars in Beijing will be banned from roads as of July 1.

On Monday, the State Council also decided to halve the number of government vehicles in the capital.

Many central and municipal departments are also taking early action.

The Beijing Environmental Protection Bureau is now keeping half of its cars in the garage.

Du Shaozhong is deputy director of the bureau.

“Except those cars that are used for environmental supervision, only half of the rest of the cars will be used under unified management.”

Beijing, which will host the Olympics and the Paralympics in August and September, has more than three million vehicles.

One tenth of them are government-owned cars on the road every day.

The Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications has taken a series of measures to control traffic, including an even-odd system based on license plate numbers that will keep vehicles off the road on alternate days from July 20 to Sept. 20.

Zhou Zhengyu is the deputy head of the committee.

“The even-odd system we are using for this Olympics is the same measure implemented in the Athens Olympics. We also encourage citizens to adopt flexible work hours or take holidays, if possible. These measures have all worked out in previous games.”

The committee predicted that about 45 percent of all vehicles and up to 70 percent of government-owned cars will be off the roads during the Beijing Olympics.

Local authorities will increase the number of buses and subway trains and extend their daily operating hours to encourage people to take public transport.

Tags: Beijing Today, transport

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