Opinion
License plate lottery may benefit from some tweaks
By Ben Lim Chiow Ang (China Daily)
Updated: 2011-01-06 15:40
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As we usher in the year 2011, transport, housing and inflation will continue to hog the headlines. These are the bread and butter issues for the man-on-the-street and expatriates alike.
The rest of China will watch Beijing, the capital with 20 million people and 4.8 million vehicles, with intense interest to see how it tries to resolve its chronic traffic gridlock.
The recent opening of five new suburban subway lines in the capital - Fangshan Line, Changping Line, Yizhuang Line, Daxing Line, and the first phase of Line 15 - will bring convenience to people living in the suburban areas of Changping, Shunyi, Fangshan, Daxing and Yizhuang. The new lines will bring the total length of the metro to 336 kilometers.
However, the jury is still out on how many people living in these five suburban districts will be convinced to give up their prized cars and take public transit. Convenience, time saving, affordability and comfort are the key ingredients in persuading car owners to leave their vehicles at home and commute to work by metro or bus.
The well-publicized measures by the Beijing municipal government to put a cap of 240,000 new private cars for Beijing's roads in 2011 will no doubt put a brake on the astounding growth of the capital's car population. It will be interesting to see the development of the newly implemented lottery system that will allocate car license plates to Beijing's permanent residents.
The lottery format that is being seen as the fairest and most open way of dealing with the issue, will be under close scrutiny from other parts of China to see if it can be duplicated.
I wonder if we will see new license plates being "traded" on the Internet, notwithstanding the risk involved in allowing a "stranger" to use your registered car.
It was reported that, by the end of the first day of 2011, more than 50,000 online applications had been received for new car license plates. If we extrapolate that, by the time the application closes on Jan 8, there could be 400,000 aspiring car owners trying to get their hands on one of the 17,600 private license plates that will be available in January.
The hard-to-get license plate will simply elevate the status of owning a car in the capital and the by-product might be discontent among genuine potential car buyers.
The 50,000 applications received just on the first day could be attributed to all the eligible members in each household making individual bids in order to enhance their chances of owning a car for the family. If one family member wins, the unsuccessful family members will still automatically be thrown into the hat for the February draw. This, in my view, will deprive other genuine would-be car buyers of a chance to buy a car.
In this regard, the authorities might like to refine the rules and start each month's draw with a clean slate. In other words, all unsuccessful aspiring car owners would need to re-apply online for the following month's draw if they are still interested.
Because there is currently no penalty for an "unused allotted car license plate" and people have six months to use the allotment if they want to, there is nothing to stop all the members of a household and their relatives submitting individual applications online. In order to deter frivolous applications, the authority might like to consider imposing a non-refundable fee for each applicant.
Car manufacturers, car dealerships, auto salesman, and the man-in-the-street will watch with close interest to see how the new lottery system for the private car license plates will unfold in the months ahead.