Traffic congestion in Beijing was listed as a major subject in the State's key research development plan in early August. Thirty million yuan (US$3.8 million) will be put into a study on how the chronically clogged flow of vehicles can be cleared up.

This is good news for residents in the city, who have been haunted by traffic jams for years without seeing any hope of change for the better. The total number of private cars has reached 2.7 million, and is still on the increase, and there can be more than 400 traffic jams during rush hours.

Although we do have reason to believe that experts will work out more reasonable designs for the traffic network, we cannot be too optimistic unless fundamental improvements are made in road and traffic management.

In terms of road management, the repeated renovations of roads have been compared to a chronic disease seriously plaguing the smooth flow of traffic. Often a section of road will be renovated or cut open several times a year or, worse, a renovation project on a section of road may stretch on for several years.

Even if there were a scientifically designed road network throughout the city, the repeated renovations on many parts of the network would no doubt seriously disrupt the normal flow of traffic.

The too-long or too-short intervals between red and green traffic lights, the different amounts of time vehicles from different directions take to go through a crossing, the reasonable use of one-way roads and the approaches employed by traffic police to sort out chaotic situations have a great bearing on the flow of traffic.

Beijing's traffic system is described by experts as being very inefficient and far from a sound circle of operation. If management cannot be improved, the investment of 30 million yuan will likely result in something that could hardly ease the traffic congestion.

The fact that quite a large number of drivers do not abide by traffic rules has also contributed to the jams. Statistics revealed last year that as many as 400,000 traffic violations a month were caught by video cameras. If the awareness of the majority of drivers for observing traffic rules cannot be raised, the effectiveness of the scientific traffic network would certainly be discounted.

It seems that detailed investigations need to be conducted to find out how much road renovations, unscientific management and driving irregularities respectively have contributed to congestion before the planners sit down to work on their project.

To be frank, these elements have been there for years, and it would be ridiculous for scientists to spend their precious time on verifying their existence. Their efforts should be focused on the causes behind these problems and effective solutions to them.