1. Eastern Radio Shanghai: There are a total of 800,000 cars in Shanghai, with 126,000 parking spaces. Can you explain why the city will control the supply of parking spaces in city center? How to improve the regulations of auctioning car license plates? License plates of new public vehicles will also be auctioned in the future. Can you tell me whether or not the license fees are likely to be shifted on to local citizens?

Jiao Yang: Due to limited road resources and large traffic flows in local downtown areas, Shanghai controls the supply of parking spaces in city center. We will make an overall planning of parking-lot construction, and strengthen crack-down on parking cars randomly. The Shanghai traffic and patrol police department has conducted a large-scale campaign on randomly parked vehicles, and local citizens and media are encouraged to take part in the campaign.
As to the plate auction issue, Shanghai actually continues to improve the regulations, such as increasing the number of license plates available over the past two months. We are currently studying to prefect the regulation and will release the new policies to the public as soon as possible.
We are trying to include the public vehicles in the local plate auction policy, with plans currently being studied.

2. Shanghai Education Television: Shanghai is experiencing a continuous heat wave recently. Traffic jam is most serious during hot and rainy days. Can you tell me whether there are any concrete measures adopted by transportation department to ease the problem?

Jiao Yang: Recently, Shanghai citizens feel serious traffic congestion in the city, and I have consulted local transportation management department for the problem. Heave wave drives up the number of traffic accidents, putting new pressure on the crowded roads. That's the key reason. According to statistics, as of July, from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., there are an average of 60 traffic accidents on elevated roads every day, with more than 50 vehicles breaking down. More than 35 accidents have taken place at the city's major roads every day, with more than ten vehicles breaking down on Yan'an Road Tunnel during peak hours. There are frequent storms in summer, slowing the car speed, and road construction also has a negative impact on local traffic.
Local department is currently adopting five measures to ease the problem: firstly, traffic and patrol police crack down on traffic rule violators; secondly, traffic department strengthens management on quick-disposal of traffic accidents; thirdly, optimizing traffic structure by banning more left-hand bends and adding more one-way roads; fourthly, perfecting street symbols and signal lamp system to improve the passing qualities in road sections; fifthly, completing the installation of 30 controlling equipments on elevated roads, which will be put into use in the third quarter of this year.

3. Reuters: How about the city's power shortage problem this summer? How to solve it?
Jiao Yang: During the previous press conference, a leader with the Shanghai Economic Commission has introduced the local power policies. As of this year, there are growing power demands in the city, with a total of 45.88 billion kwh of electricity consumed by the end of last month, up 13 percent from the same period last year. The largest daily power consumption exceeded 300 million kwh on July 23. The daily peak load increase hit 11 percent on average, while the daily load increase at low point hit 14 percent, with the gap shortened between peak and low load times. Although this year is not as  hot as last year and local power-saving measures have reduced the power loads by 1.8 million - 2 million kw, local power use has hit new records for four times. It hit 15.01 million kw on July 23 and 14.91 million kw on July 30. Shanghai's actual power demand has reached nearly 17 millin kw this summer, 300,000 kw higher than predicted early this year.
The peak load times will be from June 15 to September 17, with three time periods - peak-preparing period, high-temperature period and extreme high-temperature period (over 35 Celsius degrees). With tremendous efforts made citywide, power supply situation of this year is expected to be better than last year. Shanghai will continue to restrict rather than cut off the power supply, guaranteeing the power use of local residents, key manufacturing companies and supporting local production and people's lives in an orderly way.
Five features of local power policies: firstly, power restriction will be initially enforced to inferior industries; secondly, companies that using a lot of power in an inefficient way will have to shift their production to night hours or weekends to avoid peak load times; thirdly, ensuring the power supply to key joint venture companies; fourthly, allowing industries which are unsuitable to operate in high temperatures to be on leave; fifthly, giving priority to manufacturers where power cuts will pose safety troubles.

4. Eastday: As the main means of transport for many local residents, bicycles are blamed for traffic congestion and considered as a nuisance on the road. Will the city confine their access to a small area? Secondly: Many residential areas are named after garden or villa despite the fact that few trees or flowers are planted in these communities. What's the government's precaution against it?

Jiao Yang: Local residents are heavily dependent on such non-motor vehicles as bicycles. According to incomplete figures, Shanghai has a non-motor vehicle population of 10 million. The popularity of non-motor vehicles is understandable because of the limited purchasing power of local residents and the city government has no plans to ban cycling downtown. On the other hand, the government will take measures to control the population growth of non-motor vehicles and ease their pressure on road traffic. In answer to your second question, local residential areas must be named in accordance with pertinent regulations. Only those residential areas with a green coverage rate of at least 50 percent can be named after "garden". Only those communities cover an area of at least 20,000 square meters and have building area of at least 100,000 square meters can be named after "city". Those named after "mountain villa" should be at the foot of hills and cover an area of at least 10,000 square meters. Those named after "plaza" should cover an area of at least 8,000 square meters and spare open space of at least 2,000 square meters.

5. Oriental Morning Post: What is Bus Rapid Transit(BRT) system? Secondly, You have just stressed the need to build cross-river tunnels. It is said that the central government has approved the construction project of a cross-river tunnel connecting downtown Shanghai and Chongming Island. What's the project's progress?

Jiao Yang: The municipal government has submitted the feasibility study report on the project to the department concerned and yet to receive reply. Local BRT system, now under construction, is a strategy for improving bus service rather than a transport tool. 

6. Tai Kong Po (Hong Kong): The experiment in creating man-made rain is local residents' greatest concern this summer. Some reporters even make special trips to Wuxi, Jiangsu province, to cover it, only to be disappointed at the failure. Could you give some details of the experiment?

Jiao Yang: I'm here to remind citizens that any scientific testing is likely to result in failure. Unnecessary excitement or disappointment should be avoided. Weather permitting, Shanghai will conduct experiment in making artificial rain soon, which is a way to cool down the city. Well-conceived plan should be made and safety must be ensured during the experiment. Besides the help of experienced experts, the municipal government has asked the general headquarter of People's Liberation Army's air force for help and was allowed to use the military's aircraft during the experiments.

7. Wen Hui Bao: Shanghai plans to raise the speed of motor vehicles in downtown areas to 25 kilometers per hour in the year 2010. What's the present speed? Secondly, you have just mentioned that the city will adopt a traffic signal system called SCATS. What is SCATS? Thirdly, When will the artificial rain be created? There's rain outside right now. Is it artificial rain?

Jiao Yang: In answer to your third question, the rain outside is natural rain. Weather permitting, the experiment in creating man-made rain will be conducted.
The speed of motor vehicles in downtown areas will be increased to 25 kilometers per hour in the year 2010, which is the city's goal of traffic development. At present motor vehicles run at an average speed of about 17 kilometers per hour in downtown areas, and the speed might be below 10 kilometers per hour during peak time.
Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS), which has been introduced into many big cities in the world, can automatically adjust traffic signal timing in response to fluctuations in traffic flows. The system works as follows: Datas on traffic flows are gathered by the traffic controller at each intersection and then transmitted to a central computer, which makes adjustments to traffic signal timings. Currently this system has provided centralized control for local traffic signals at most of the intersections within inner ring road and more than 950 intersections outside inner ring road.

8. Ta Kung Pao:  It's reported that this year's employment rate of university graduates ranges about 90 percent.  That means about 10,000 graduates are jobless, if his year's university graduates number 100,0000.  So in a sudden, the young people have become a main force of Shanghai's jobless population.  In Hong Kong, there're organizations specialized in accepting and managing the fresh graduates.  Then has Shanghai municipal government any concrete measures to tackle the issue?

Jiao Yang:  This year's employment of university graduates has been well completed.  But I'm not sure about the rate of 90 percent as you mentioned. 

My data from the educational ministry's statistics indicates, the employment rate of Shanghai's university graduates was 78.44 percent at the end of June.  I'm not clear whether the rate has increased 12 percentages in the past month.

Compared with last year's rate of 73.56 percent, this year's employment rate is higher.  The rates for undergraduate students and students of junior colleges have grown, but that for postgraduates has declined.  The decline is partly due to the sharp increase of graduates resulting from the country's enrollment expansion policy for postgraduate education.

This year, Shanghai's universities have established a record system for the unemployed graduates.  By June 30th, the overall jobless rate was 0.71 percent, with the rates of each category as postgraduates, undergraduates, graduates of junior colleges and vocational schools lower than 1 percent.

The reporter said the young people have become the main force of the employed.  I think the issue should be approached in this way:  young people are different the middle-aged.  The government has attached high attentions to the middle-aged, who, because of the special historical problems, employ out-of-date skills and poor education yet shoulder a heavy economic burden to support the family.  Of course, the government concerns the employment issue with the youth.  But the young people have stronger learning capability and higher education.  Some are not employed, just because they can't make a best choice.  They have wider choices. 

I have consulted the dean with the city's educational commission.  If the graduates accept any work they are distributed, they will immediately have jobs.  For example, teachers are in bad need in the suburban areas.  But the graduates don't always accept the positions they're offered.  In this sense, young people should better have a correct value about job.

9. East China branch of the People's Daily:  You said that the government will strictly control the street areas occupied for digging and construction and control the occupation rate in the Inner Ring area down to below 0.2 percent.  But currently, the rate stands not low.  And projects in these areas, unlikely the big construction projects, for which a sign will be posted to notify citizens about the work and when will it end, impose big interference with the traffic.  Then how will the government departments manage it?  And will more information will be disclosed on the small street projects?  If so, does it entail the problem of coordination between the urban construction department and the traffic department?
　　

Jiao Yang:  Thank you for your good advice.  I'll convey it to related departments after the conference.  Press conference is not only a place where we issue information, but also a place where suggestions and opinions from reporters are welcomed.

As for whether it entails the coordination between the urban construction and traffic departments, I think these projects mainly fall in the category of the urban construction department, though they do bring difficulty for traffic administration.  We'll carry out the construction exactly according to the plan and try best to avoid it in peak traffic hours with scientific and strict management.  It's not yet satisfactory in information disclosing for street construction, but we'll be exerted to make the information more transparent to the citizens.

10.  Shanghai Morning Post:  Why so many streets in Shanghai use the same names?  And how does the spokesperson comment on the rising number of street nameplates in English?  What's the procedure for approving the names of property projects?  Will the projects have to change the names if they fail the proposals?

Jiao Yang:  There are 372 street names repeatedly used.  Why so many, I think it's a historic problem.  Before 1995, the prevention of overlapped road names was limited to the downtown areas.  The naming of roads in township and rural ways are managed by the district and county authorities.  The similarity of naming philosophies among the local authorities has brought in the overlapped street names such as "Yucai Road", "Renmin Road" and "Xincheng Road".  In this case, there's an article in the "Shanghai Toponym Management Regulation", ruling that "names of streets across the city mustn't be overlapped".  Since then, names of all the new roads must be checked before they are used in a bid to prevent overlap.  No overlap has occurred with new roads built since 1999.

To solve the overlapped names is a systematic project, which incurs impacts on wide aspects.  As public information, change of the names must affect the street nameplates, tablets, corporate registration, property right certificates, residence certificates, social security cards and payment for public facilities.  So we must be cautious. Also, it entails cooperation between various departments as well as support from the citizens.

The city's toponym office is drafting a check plan and will carry it on a trial basis in one or two months.  If the trial is successful, the plan will be expanded to the city within the year and expected completely solve the overlap problem by next September.

As an important media for toponym, street nameplates have attracted wide attentions.  The city's street nameplates are now written in both Chinese and English, which, however, sometimes spark disputes.  As an international city, Shanghai has been making efforts to seek a standardized Chinese-English translation system for street names to create a nice city environment for the Shanghai Expo 2010.  Currently, the name of a street is spelt in Chinese pinyin, and the "road" is marked as RD, such as "Renmin RD". 

Since 2003, when Shanghai municipal government issued "Some views on strengthening the management of English translation of the names of public venues", the local toponym office has applied to the city's language committee to push the standardized Chinese-English translation of place names.  The work is still ongoing.

11. News Times: As the power shortfall becomes server recently, what stipulations are put on the power consuming in recreational places?
You mentioned that Shanghai will adjust the car plate auction method. Car plates for vehicles for government departments and enterprises use will also be issued through auction. Does it mean the present quota issuing policy for government and enterprise use will be abolished? Will public and private car plates be auctioned at a same platform?

Jiao Yang: By the peak hour power saving regulations, air conditioner in large recreational places shall not be turned on before pm 4:00. To date this measure has largely ease the power shortfall. There are about 6000 recreational places in Shanghai. According to the national classifying standard, this regulation is applied to sauna bathhouse and nightclubs, dancery and KTVs that pay tax rate at 20 percent. There are about 6000 recreational places in Shanghai.

As for you second question, the issue of public vehicle plate auction in under consideration. Shanghai government gives the first priority to public transportation; therefore the amount of sedans on road shall be controlled. Presently, we control the amount of private cars through car plate auction; meanwhile we control the amount of public cars through purchasing limitations. The increase of public cars is much lower than that of private cars. Yet, we're considering applying the auction control to public vehicles to make the policy fairer. The actually measures will be publicized later. On the whole, the new measures will be consistent with the former policy.

12. South China Morning Post: Due to the macro economy control of the central government, construction of some urban railways are postponed or cancelled. Is Shanghai's railroad construction affected by the policy? Has the construction of metro line No.4 restarted? Will the construction of railway linking Xujiahui area and Songjiang District be cancelled?

Jiao Yang: Work on the metro line No.4 is under progress. Shanghai's major urban infrastructure projects are going on well. The central government's policies to rein in overheating economy provide Shanghai a change to readjustment its industry and investment structure. Therefore, the local government will strictly abide by the central government policy. Construction of the infrastructure is progressing according to its schedule. No postponement or disapproval has occurred to date.