Major improvements are being made to the city's roads to ease congestion and improve traffic flow.

Shanghai plans to renovate major roads, accelerate the construction of new Metro lines and create more parking spaces as part of its efforts to improve the city’s public transport system and roads.

Xie Feng, director of the Shanghai Transportation Commission, said 102 public bus routes had been adjusted or optimized in the first half of the year.

Construction of 128 kilometers of new Metro lines, including the second phases of Line 10, Line 14, Line 15 and first phase of Line 18, will be accelerated in the second half of the year.

Xie said the commission is working with district-level governments on plans to renovate 100 major roads to incorporate barrier-free designs and parking for non-motorized vehicles.

Shanghai has more than 100 “dead-end roads” at district borders due to differing road designs.

Xie said over 75 of them had been renovated so far by being connected to the neighboring transport system to maximize their function. Renovation of another seven are due to be complete by the end of the year.

Management of bicycles, including bike-sharing companies, will be improved in the latter part of the year, the commission said.

Apart from improving the bicycle lane network, the commission will introduce an assessment system for bike-sharing companies. Their operation and service quality will be rated, which will affect the number of bikes they will be able to register.

To ease parking problems for car owners in some neighborhoods, the commission is to integrate road and social parking lots and make them share parking space with nearby residential neighborhoods.

As for inter-provincial transport, all nine toll booths in Shanghai bordering Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces will be replaced by electronic toll collection systems by the end of the year.

It takes a car about 15 seconds and a truck 29 seconds to pass a manual toll booth. With ETC, any vehicle will need less than 3 seconds to complete the procedure, easing congestion.

More than 300 ETC portals will be built at the tolls and 556 lanes will be remodeled. One lane for manual toll fee collection will be kept at each booth for foreigners and people from out of town, while about 90 percent of all vehicles will be automatically charged.