The city of Suzhou, Jiangsu province, arranged the Large City Congestion and Carbon Reduction Forum, on Nov. 10, with help from the State Communications Dept., World Bank, and its municipal government, since it is a pilot city for the World Bank’s China Global Environment Facility (GEF), Large City Congestion and Carbon Reduction Project and is obliged to improve its public transportation before 2017 by impleting 14 projects.

The China GEF Large City Congestion and Carbon Reduction Project got started on Oct 28, of last year, with China’s Transport Ministry as the implementing agent and Suzhou, Chengdu and Harbin as the pilot cities in a move to reduce congestion by improving public transportation and travel demand management, and monitoring the various related projects.

The GEF Large City Congestion and Carbon Reduction Project’s purpose in China is to establish policies for alleviating traffic congestion and reducing greenhouse gas emissions in large cities, primarily through public transportation and travel demand management, and to implement the policies in pilot cities to demonstrate their benefits.

The total cost of the project has been put at $46.05 million, to be allocated for 14 projects in improving public transportation, transport management and capacity and, so far Suzhou has finished the promotion of green energy buses and the construction of a citywide transportation monitoring system, leaving 12 to deal with.

Out of these, work on six other projects has already commenced, including on technical issues, a comprehensive travel information service system, and a study on bus-oriented urban development—a new developing mode of Suzhou. [Photo/Communications Department of Jiangsu province]