Analysis on Beijing's Policy of Restricting Motor Vehicle Usage

Along with the increase of car ownership,the problem of traffic congestion has appeared more and more serious since the 1990s in Beijing.In order to deal with the problem of traffic congestion,the policy of restricting motor vehicle usage,as a measure of transportation demand management by decreasing the total number of on-road motor vehicles,was firstly implemented in 2006 in trial,which continued from 2008 during the period of Olympic Games up to day.Starting with an analysis on policy motivation,this paper describes the practices of restricting motor vehicle usage in Beijing since 2006,analyzes the effects on the performance of the city's transportation,and concludes after a comparative analysis that,in spite of the positive effects on relieving the traffic congestion,the policy of restricting motor vehicle usage could only constitute a temporary measure of traffic demand management,rather than a fundamental one,because the comprehensive effects would decrease along with the continuous growth of motor vehicle possession.

Growth of nitrate contribution to aerosol pollution during wintertime in Xi'an,northwest China:Formation mechanism and effects of NH_(3)

With the strengthened controls on SO2 emissions and extensive increases in motor vehicles'exhaust,aerosol pollution shifts from sulfate-rich to nitrate-rich in recent years in Xi'an,China.To further gain insights into the factors on nitrate formation and efficiently mitigate air pollution,highly time-resolved observations of water-soluble inorganic ions(WSIIs)in PM_(2.5) were measured in a suburban area of Xi'an,China during wintertime.Hourly concentration of total WSIIs is 39.8μg m-3 on average,accounting for 50.3%of PM_(2.5) mass.In contrast to a slight decrease in the mass fraction of SO_(4)^(2-),NO_(3)-shows a sig-nificant increase of the PM_(2.5) contribution with the aggravation of aerosol pollution.This suggests the importance of NO_(3)-formation to haze evolution.Furthermore,homogeneous reactions govern the formation of NO_(3)-,while alkali metals such as calcium and sodium play an additional role in retaining NO_(3)-in PM_(2.5) during clean periods.However,the heterogeneous hydrolysis reaction contributed more to NO_(3)-formation during the pollution periods under high relative humidity.Our investigation reveals that temperature,relative humidity,oxidant,and ammonia emissions facilitate rapid NO_(3)-formation.Using the random forest(RF)model,NO_(3)-concentrations were successfully simulated with measured variables for the training and testing datasets(R2>0.95).Among these variables,CO,NH_(3),and NO_(2) were found to be the main factors affecting the NO_(3)-concentrations.Compared with the period without vehicle re-striction,the contributions of NO_(3)-and NH4+to PM_(2.5) mass decreased by 5.3%and 3.4%in traffic re-striction periods,respectively.The vehicle restriction leads to the decreases of precursor gases of NO_(2),SO_(2),and NH_(3) by 12.8%,5.9%,and 27.6%,respectively.The results demonstrate collaborative emission reduction of NO_(x) and NH_(3) by vehicle restrictions,and using new energy vehicles(or electric vehicles)can effectively alleviate particulate matter pollution in northwest China.