In May 2022, the Ministry of Transport issued the Notice on Organizing the Establishment of the National Transit Metropolis Construction Demonstration Project during the 14th Five-Year Plan Period (“the Notice”), which made it clear to deeply implement the priority development strategy of urban public transport, promote the high-quality development of urban public transport, and strongly support accelerating the construction of a transportation power and achieving the goal of carbon peaking and carbon neutrality.

Since the launch of the National Transit Metropolis Construction Demonstration Project in 2011, the Ministry of Transport has successively identified 87 cities including Beijing as transit metropolis creation cities and named 33 cities as “National Transit Metropolis Construction Demonstration Cities”. Previously, the Ministry of Transport issued the Administrative Measures for the National Transit Metropolis Construction Demonstration Project (“the Administrative Measures”) to guide the cities to build an urban transportation travel structure with public transport as the main body according to local characteristics, and gradually improve the sharing rate of urban public transport in motorized travel.

According to the Notice, all provincial transportation authorities should actively organize relevant cities to carry out the national transit metropolis construction demonstration project during the “14th Five-Year Plan” period in accordance with the Administrative Measures, and create transit metropolis according to the process of city declaration, provincial audit, ministerial review and project implementation. Eligible cities shall, before the end of July 2022, organize the preparation of the Implementation Plan for the National Transit Metropolis Construction Demonstration Project (“the Implementation Plan”) and other application materials and submit them to the provincial transportation authorities. The provincial transportation authorities shall complete the review on application materials for the creation of transit metropolis by the end of August, recommend no more than two creation cities to the Ministry of Transport, and clarify the priority of cities. In principle, the creation period of transit metropolis is 3 years, and all creation cities should fully promote the related work in strict accordance with the approved Implementation Plan to ensure that all the tasks are completed on schedule.

The Notice requires all provincial transportation authorities to carefully organize the declaration, strictly review the application materials, and recommend the creation cities fairly and impartially; to actively strive for the support of the government at the same level and give policy and financial support according to local conditions; and to intensify the publicity of transit metropolis construction and actively promote the effectiveness of transit metropolis construction work.