shenzhen was the no. 6 most congested city nationwide in 2016, according to the amap company, one of china's leading digital map, navigation and gps service providers.
the amap company recently released a report on urban transportation in major chinese cities last year.
the amap-led report was jointly studied by multiple institutions including the scientific research institute of the ministry of communications, tsinghua university daimler sustainable transportation research center and alibaba cloud computing co. ltd.
after studying the roads in 364 cities and national expressways, the report analyzed 60 cities based on the data collected by amap and other transportation institutions. though shenzhen's traffic congestion in 2016 was not as bad as jinan, harbin and beijing, the top three most congested cities, it was still a big problem for local residents.
an index known as congestion delay index was created to quantify urban traffic situations in all cities. the figures used an equation that divides the actual traveling time by the normal traveling time with no congestion. a higher index means more congested traffic.
for shenzhen, the index for the rush hours was 1.892 and the whole-day index was 1.635. the recorded average car speed during rush hours was 24.39 km per hour and 28.2 km per hour for the whole day in shenzhen.
it was recorded that the period from april to june was the most congested season last year. may was the month with the worst traffic, when the index soared to 2.01, and the average speed during peak hours was 22.77 km per hour.
in contrast, february last year saw the smoothest traffic in shenzhen with an index of 1.52 because a large number of residents had gone back to their hometowns for the spring festival.
as for particular days, there were 56 days when the travel time was double the normal travel time on days when traffic was smooth. jan. 22 was the day with the most traffic congestion, with the index as high as 2.44 and a lowest average car speed of 19.02 km per hour.
more specifically, meiguan road, which connects the city center in futian district and northern longhua district, was reported as the most congested road in shenzhen during the morning peak hours, while xiangmihu road had the worst traffic flow during the evening rush hour last year. this indicated that a large number of vehicles entered the city center via meiguan road in the morning and a lot of people chose to go home via xiangmihu road.
in terms of district, luohu district was the most congested in shenzhen last year. luohu is the oldest area in the city, so the roads there are narrow and complicated. futian and bao’an districts followed luohu, while nanshan had a much lower rate of traffic congestion, according to the report.
