Access to national highways within 15min, expressways within 30min and railways within 60min

Development direction of future traffic construction

In February 2021, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Outline of National Comprehensive Three-dimensional Transportation Network Planning (“the Outline”), which made it clear that by 2035, except for some remote areas, the county-level administrative centers in China will basically access to national highways within 15min, expressways within 30min and railways within 60min. What specific development goals are put forward in the Outline? What key tasks have been identified? An official of the Ministry of Transport received an exclusive interview with the Xinhua News Agency on February 24.

“The Outline is an action guide to direct China’s transportation to accelerate the construction of a transportation power that is satisfied by the people, strong in security and in the forefront of the world in the current and future period, and to serve the comprehensive construction of a socialist modern country”, the official said.

The Outline puts forward the development goal of building a modern and high-quality national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network. Specifically, a modern and high-quality national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network that is convenient, smooth, economical, efficient, green, intensive, intelligent, advanced, safe and reliable will be basically built by 2035, realizing international and domestic interconnection, three-dimensional accessibility between major cities in China and effective coverage of county-level nodes, which will strongly support the “1-2-3 circles” for passenger trips and the transportation of goods.

The proportion of people enjoying rapid transportation services will greatly increase. Except for some remote areas, the municipal and prefecture-level administrative centers take 45min to get to high-speed railways and 60min to get to airports. The one-day accessibility between prefecture-level cities will be basically realized. It takes half an hour  to reach the comprehensive passenger transport hubs from central cities, and the transit time between the comprehensive passenger transport hubs is less than 1h.

By the middle of this century, a modern and high-quality national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network will be built in an all-round way, with a world-class transportation infrastructure system, effective balance between transportation supply and demand, equal service quality and strong security guarantee. New technologies are widely used to realize digitalization, networking, intelligence and greening. Travel is safe, convenient and comfortable, logistics is efficient, economical and reliable, and “people enjoy their travel and goods are smoothly transported in the logistics system”.

According to this official, the Outline has defined 12 key tasks in three aspects, such as optimizing the national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation layout, promoting the overall integration and development of comprehensive transportation, and pushing the high-quality development of comprehensive transportation. Among them, the Outline puts forward four tasks in optimizing the national comprehensive three-dimensional traffic layout:

First, build a perfect national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network. It aims to build a national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network with railways as the backbone and highways as the foundation, fully leveraging the comparative advantages of water transportation and civil aviation. By 2035, the total scale of the physical network of the national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network will be approximately 700,000 km.

Second, speed up the construction of the main skeleton of the national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network with “6 axes, 7 corridors and 8 passages”. According to the transportation demand level, key areas are divided into three categories: “pole, group and cluster”. Among them, Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle are the poles. Between the four poles, six comprehensive, multi-channel, three-dimensional, large-capacity and fast traffic axes are designed. Seven multi-mode, multi-channel and convenient traffic corridors are designed between poles and groups, and between groups. Eight traffic passages are designed between poles or groups and clusters, and between clusters.

Third, build a multi-level integrated national comprehensive transportation hub system. China will build 4 international comprehensive transportation hub clusters (Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei, Yangtze River Delta, Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macau Greater Bay Area and Chengdu-Chongqing Economic Circle), about 20 international comprehensive transportation hub cities and about 80 national comprehensive transportation hub cities, and promote the construction of a number of international and national hub port stations.

Fourth, improve the transportation network facing the world. China will focus on building 7 international land transport corridors such as the New Eurasian Land Bridge, and improve 4 international sea transport corridors such as the Polar Silk Road across the Arctic Ocean. Relying on international aviation hubs, China will build an air passenger and cargo transportation network extending in all directions and covering the whole world.

The official said that building a modern and high-quality national comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network in an all-round way is a glorious mission and great responsibility, and we will push forward the implementation of all tasks in a down-to-earth manner, strive to speed up the construction of a transportation power, and provide strong support for building a socialist modern country in an all-round way.