Transportation is a fundamental link and important pillar in building a modern circulation system, facilitating the smooth flow of the national economy, and establishing a unified national market. Since the reform and opening up, especially since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, reforms in China’s railway, highway, waterway, and civil aviation sectors have deepened continuously, and the transportation market system has been steadily improved. By the end of 2024, the General Office of the Central Committee and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified and Open Transportation Market,” outlining key reform tasks in the transportation sector. How to promote cross-regional coordinated planning and cross-sector synergistic development in transportation? This issue invites experts to discuss related topics.
Strategic Synergy Drives Innovation in Transportation Development
How has China promoted the construction of its transportation market since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China? What are the overarching requirements for building a unified and open transportation market?
Fan Yijiang (Deputy Director and Researcher, Comprehensive Transportation Research Institute, National Development and Reform Commission): Building a unified national market is the foundational support and intrinsic requirement for constructing a new development paradigm and promoting high-quality development. Transportation is a foundational, pioneering, and strategic industry in the national economy, encompassing various modes such as railways, highways, waterways, and aviation, and covering infrastructure, transport services, technical equipment, and other fields. It not only possesses a vast traditional market but also fosters the expansion of emerging markets.
The Party Central Committee attaches great importance to the construction of the transportation market. In 2019, the Central Committee and the State Council issued the “Outline for Building a Strong Transportation Nation,” proposing to “build a modern transportation market system that is unified, open, and competitive.” In 2024, the General Office of the Central Committee and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified and Open Transportation Market,” clarifying the overall requirements and key tasks for transportation market development. This year’s “Government Work Report” emphasized accelerating the construction of a unified and open transportation market and implementing special actions to reduce overall logistics costs. The sixth meeting of the Central Financial and Economic Affairs Commission in July this year proposed “advancing the construction of a unified national market in depth,” with the basic requirements being “five unifications and one openness,” providing guidance for building a unified and open transportation market.
Since the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China, China’s transportation market has developed rapidly, providing critical support for linking production and consumption, facilitating regional factor flows, smoothing the national economic cycle, expanding demand space, and constructing a new development paradigm.
Leveraging the construction of a comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network, China has fostered an ultra-large-scale infrastructure and supporting market. By the end of 2024, the total length of China’s comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network exceeded 6 million kilometers, with a transportation service market handling over 60 billion cross-regional passenger trips and over 50 billion tons of commercial freight annually, directly and indirectly employing hundreds of millions of workers, including truck drivers and couriers. Currently, China has a large-scale market for transport vehicles and technical equipment, including trains, high-speed rail, automobiles, new energy vehicles, ships, aircraft, drones, and loading machinery, driving upgrades and expansions in related manufacturing and service markets. Based on high-density, high-frequency, and diverse passenger and cargo flows, large-scale markets for capital, data, and other flow elements, as well as energy, airspace, and maritime resources, have gradually formed. With the acceleration of the new technological revolution and industrial transformation, transportation is deeply integrating with new technologies, platforms, and energy sources, incubating diversified and large-scale emerging markets in areas such as express delivery, autonomous driving, and the low-altitude economy. Focusing on high-quality Belt and Road cooperation, international collaboration continues to deepen. From the opening of the China-Laos Railway to May this year, the railway has transported over 53 million passengers and over 60 million tons of cargo, with spillover effects extending to 19 countries and regions. The China-Europe Railway Express has operated over 110,000 trips, reaching 229 cities in 26 European countries.
Building a unified and open transportation market is a key component of constructing a unified national market, requiring adherence to strategic directions and overall requirements for deepening progress. Focusing on integration, synergy, comprehensiveness, openness, convergence, and innovation, efforts should expand market scale, optimize market structure, extend market demand, unify market systems, improve the market environment, and stimulate market vitality. Strengthening interconnectivity and efficiency across the entire lifecycle, chain, system, and sectors of the market will promote cross-regional planning, multimodal integration, and cross-sector synergistic development of infrastructure, basic elements, foundational systems, and ecosystems. Deep integration of upstream and downstream industrial chain markets and domestic and international supply chain markets, along with the incubation and expansion of emerging markets, will comprehensively enhance the efficiency, effectiveness, and performance of the comprehensive transportation market, effectively reducing overall logistics and transaction costs, and better serving and supporting the new development paradigm.
Specifically, deepening “four major strategic synergies” is key. First, deepen the strategic synergy between building a unified and open transportation market and constructing a unified national market. Adopting a “whole-nation approach,” promote deep integration between the transportation market and all sectors of the economy and society, unify basic institutional rules, ensure fair and unified market regulation, and achieve high-standard connectivity in infrastructure. Use the unified and open transportation market to drive and support the construction of a unified national market, enhancing domestic market efficiency, expansion, and agglomeration effects. Second, deepen strategic synergy between traditional and emerging markets. Aligning with trends in technological innovation and industrial upgrading, focus on cultivating new productive forces, deeply tap the potential of traditional transportation markets, unleash the efficiency of ultra-large-scale existing markets, expand the value space of incremental markets, and strengthen synergy in facilities, services, equipment, and talent. Foster emerging markets such as the low-altitude economy and autonomous driving, and proactively develop markets for data, technology, standards, and elements like airspace and maritime resources. Third, deepen strategic synergy between domestic and international markets. Based on domestic demand, expand the scale and capacity of the domestic transportation market, attract global resources through the domestic cycle, and promote high-quality Belt and Road cooperation to achieve high-level international connectivity. Build a modern circulation system, advance integrated domestic and foreign trade development, smooth export-to-domestic sales pathways, and ensure the resilience and stability of international industrial, supply, and innovation chains. Fourth, deepen strategic synergy between government guidance and market mechanisms. Further deepen comprehensive reforms, better leverage the government’s leading role in foundational, public-benefit, and long-term major transportation projects and services, and fully utilize the decisive role of market mechanisms in allocating resources in competitive and operational transportation sectors. Promote independent operations in natural monopoly segments like railways and market-oriented reforms in competitive segments, innovate regulatory approaches in emerging fields, enhance market participation by various entities, and cultivate global-leading and first-class transportation enterprises.
Introducing Diverse Entities to Stimulate Market Vitality
What innovative practices exist in accelerating market-oriented reforms in competitive segments of industries like railways? What future development potential is there?
Lu Shaokai (Professor, School of Economics and Management, Southwest Jiaotong University): Railways are the lifeline of the national economy and critical infrastructure. China’s railways possess unique advantages such as large capacity, all-weather operation, low-carbon efficiency, and regional balance, playing a pivotal role in the comprehensive transportation system. In 2024, the General Office of the Central Committee and the State Council issued the “Opinions on Accelerating the Construction of a Unified and Open Transportation Market,” proposing to “accelerate market-oriented reforms in competitive segments of industries like railways.” The core lies in introducing diverse entities to stimulate market vitality and leverage railways’ foundational and leading role in building a unified and open transportation market. “Private capital entering railways” has injected new vitality into China’s high-speed rail development through innovative models like mixed ownership and特许经营.
From the late 1990s to the early 2000s, pilot joint-venture railways were attempted, but due to imperfect governance structures and lack of capital systems, the results were unsatisfactory. In 2003, joint-venture railways accounted for 10.6% of the national railway network but contributed minimally to transport revenue, with joint ventures facing bottlenecks such as low technical standards, high debt ratios, and insufficient traffic.
Building on railway management system reforms, the 2013 “State Council Opinions on Reforming Railway Investment and Financing Systems to Accelerate Railway Construction” proposed opening ownership and operation rights of intercity railways, suburban railways, resource-development railways, and branch lines to local governments and private capital, encouraging private investment in railway construction. This laid the foundation for deepening railway investment and financing reforms. In 2015, the “Implementation Opinions on Further Encouraging and Expanding Private Investment in Railway Construction” outlined 28 measures across six areas to build a systematic framework. Subsequently, the National Development and Reform Commission announced the first batch of demonstration projects for private investment in railways. The Hangzhou-Taizhou High-Speed Rail became the first high-speed rail project with majority private capital, while the Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Rail served as a mixed-ownership reform pilot and private investment demonstration project. The innovative vitality of private enterprises and the scale advantages of a unified market deeply integrated, accelerating the construction of an efficient, interconnected, and fair open comprehensive transportation system.
Early joint-venture railways were essentially “railway-controlled with administrative management.” In contrast, the Hangzhou-Taizhou and Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Rail projects saw private consortiums holding over 50% shares, transitioning from “joint-equity participation” to “private capital control.” First, restructuring ownership. The Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Rail, led by the Baisheng United Group, independently planned routes and station locations, ensuring operational decision-making power. Second, achieving risk-sharing and long-term returns. The project adopted a BOOT (Build-Own-Operate-Transfer) model with a 34-year cooperation period, where governments and private investors shared risks during operation, avoiding the dilemma of “dumping” due to short-term losses. Third, promoting market-based pricing. Unlike early joint-venture railways requiring complex price approvals, the Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Rail has four competitive route pricing rights (with a ±20% floating range).
Social capital has transitioned from being “ancillary to the rail network” to becoming operational entities, with “private investment in railways” achieving dual improvements in economic and social benefits. On one hand, the opening of high-speed rail has significantly reduced travel time and distance, created new demand, and, combined with market-oriented operations, driven sustained growth in passenger flow. Project companies have diversified revenue models by developing extended services such as advertising, commercial leasing, and tourism services. The Hangzhou-Shaoxing-Taizhou Railway Co., Ltd. innovated operational mechanisms by launching differentiated products like high-speed rail wellness trains and tourist trains. In 2024, passenger traffic reached 25 million, with transport settlement revenue exceeding 800 million yuan, a compound annual growth rate of approximately 42.9% over the past three years, contributing about 4% to tourism along the route. On the other hand, the opening of high-speed rail has broken regional barriers, promoted coordinated regional economic development, and formed a virtuous cycle with passenger flow growth, ensuring long-term project value. The Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Rail connects the Hangzhou, Ningbo, Wenzhou, and Jinyi metropolitan areas, integrating Wenzhou into Zhejiang Province’s “1-hour transportation circle” and facilitating the flow of resources and factors between cities along the route and the Yangtze River Delta. After the high-speed rail opened, linking the Yiwu small commodity market with Wenzhou Port, cross-border e-commerce transactions in Yiwu grew by 16.29% year-on-year in the first five months of this year, with derivative income accounting for a significantly larger share.
The innovative practices of the Hangzhou-Taizhou and Hangzhou-Wenzhou High-Speed Rails provide replicable and scalable experience for private capital investment in railway construction. In the future, further reforms in railway investment and financing mechanisms are needed to ensure the steady and long-term advancement of “private investment in railways.”
First, deepen property rights system reforms. Advance the securitization of trunk railway assets, select high-quality trunk lines for asset rights confirmation and valuation, and issue REITs to revitalize existing assets. Establish nationally unified technical standards for rail connections, formulate relevant management measures, and clarify engineering specifications and cost-sharing ratios for connection projects. Consider introducing third-party professional institutions to evaluate connection plans. Second, innovate pricing mechanisms. Expand the scope of competitive routes, extending autonomous pricing rights to intercity and regional railways. Establish dynamic adjustment mechanisms, allowing passenger-dedicated lines to adjust fares based on peak and off-peak seasons. Promote the “negotiated pricing” model for bulk cargo transport, implementing “one route, one negotiation” and “one enterprise, one price.” Create a third-party settlement platform, develop a national railway settlement system, and improve compensation for public welfare transport. Third, develop diversified business models. Promote “rail + land” integrated development, exploring private capital development of commercial and office properties within a specified radius of high-speed rail stations. Expand railway derivative businesses, building a “high-speed rail economic ecosystem,” and support private enterprises in developing integrated products like “high-speed rail + cultural tourism” and “high-speed rail + cross-border e-commerce.” Fourth, continuously improve the legal safeguard system. Strengthen industry laws and regulations, clarifying clauses to protect the rights of operational entities. Consider implementing classified market access management for the transportation sector while enhancing mid- and post-event supervision.
Green and Smart Technologies Shape a New Transportation Ecosystem
In the face of green and smart development trends, what explorations have been made in the green and intelligent transformation of transportation?
Liu Xin (Director of the Transport Planning and Research Institute, Ministry of Transport): Green is the foundational color of transportation development. Accelerating the green and low-carbon transformation of transportation, promoting the adoption of new energy and clean energy vehicles, and transitioning from dual control of energy consumption to dual control of carbon emissions are key measures to advance the construction of a strong transportation nation. Speeding up the green and intelligent transformation of transportation, deeply integrating new-generation information technologies like artificial intelligence, the Internet of Things, and big data with transportation, is a crucial pathway to drive qualitative, efficiency, and dynamic changes in transportation, as well as a key driver for building a modern integrated transportation system.
In recent years, China has focused on advancing the green and intelligent transformation of transportation, organizing the first batch of 61 specialized pilot projects for building a green and low-carbon strong transportation nation and 20 zero-carbon pilot projects for road and waterway transport and facilities. A clean and low-carbon transportation system is rapidly taking shape. Meanwhile, continuous efforts in technological innovation have led to two batches of smart transportation pilot applications, integrating the efforts of over 100 innovative entities, focusing on the development and application of autonomous driving, smart shipping, and intelligent construction technologies, and implementing 50 pilot tasks. These measures have effectively supported high-quality transportation development and the construction of a strong transportation nation.
Green transportation vehicles are being rapidly adopted. Large-scale equipment renewal actions for transportation have been carried out in an orderly manner, supporting the phase-out and renewal of outdated diesel trucks and ships. Since last year, over 260,000 National III and below and National IV standard diesel trucks have been phased out and renewed. As of June this year, 68,500 new energy city buses and power batteries have been retired and renewed, with support for building about 9,800 new energy and clean energy-powered ships and retiring outdated vessels. Nationwide, new energy vehicle ownership has reached 31.4 million, accounting for 8.9% of all vehicles, with new energy buses making up 77.6% of city buses. The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology and the Ministry of Transport, among others, have promoted two batches of 25 cities to pilot comprehensive electrification in public sector vehicles, significantly improving electrification levels and charging infrastructure service capabilities. Through smart transportation pilot applications, nearly 1,000 autonomous vehicles have been deployed, with AI technologies achieving large-scale applications in scenarios like port logistics and operations.
Smart transportation infrastructure is being rapidly deployed. Construction of smart railways, highways, waterways, civil aviation, and postal services is accelerating. Twenty demonstration regions, including Beijing, Guangdong, and Zhejiang, are digitizing road and waterway infrastructure, covering over 60,000 kilometers, with 88% being part of the national comprehensive transportation network backbone. In port automation, 23 automated container terminals and 29 automated dry bulk terminals have been built, with innovations like 5G unmanned container trucks, automated remote-controlled rail cranes, and smart gates widely adopted. For highway infrastructure, 6,527 service areas now have charging parking spots, covering 98% of national expressway service areas, achieving near-universal coverage. By systematically deploying sensors for infrastructure status monitoring and traffic guidance systems, point-to-point, line-to-line, and area-to-area coordination has improved, enhancing infrastructure capacity and efficiency. For example, Jiangsu’s smart highway expansion increased traffic flow by 12% while improving efficiency by 19% and reducing congestion time by 48.7%. Zhejiang’s “Zhejiang Lock System” coordinates 16 operational ship locks, cutting average waiting times by 80%, reducing logistics costs by 300 million yuan, and increasing annual operational time by 7%.
Near-zero-carbon transportation facilities are being rapidly developed. Regions are deploying photovoltaic and wind energy facilities at service areas, toll stations, highway slopes, ports, and hubs, applying new energy storage and virtual power plant technologies to create near-zero-carbon facilities. Nationwide, clean energy capacity at transportation infrastructure exceeds 890 MW, with highways accounting for 760 MW. Shandong’s Zaozhuang-Heze Expressway energy integration pilot project has a total capacity of 124 MW, partially connected to the grid in May 2023. Once fully operational, it is expected to save 41,000 tons of standard coal and reduce carbon emissions by 114,000 tons annually, earning it a spot in the National Energy Administration’s green transition case studies. The Jinan Service Area on the Beijing-Taipei Expressway implemented a comprehensive new energy solution including solar power, energy storage, and charging, reducing annual carbon emissions by 1,725.9 tons and meeting near-zero-carbon standards for highway service areas. Tianjin Port’s North Jiang Port C automated container terminal uses 100% clean energy, generating 23.3 GWh of green electricity annually through wind and solar systems, achieving full zero-carbon operations via an integrated “wind-solar-storage-load” system.
Transportation smart management efficiency has significantly improved. The application of new-generation information collection, smart analysis, and processing systems has optimized workflows and operational mechanisms, enhancing capabilities in risk identification, rapid response, and coordinated handling. Hunan’s “6-3-1” early warning mechanism (6-hour forecast, 3-hour warning, 1-hour response) improved incident detection efficiency by 30%, reduced average emergency response time to 24 minutes, and increased handling efficiency by 60% compared to traditional methods. Sichuan’s smart management on the Ya’an-Xichang Expressway enables automatic incident alerts within 5 seconds, improving response efficiency by 90% and handling efficiency by 35%. Guangdong’s “Yue Tong Xing” platform, with over 5.2 million users, serves as the smart hub for the province’s expressway network. Zhejiang’s 14-company “Smart Highway Data Operations Alliance” has created a win-win data operation model, significantly boosting collaborative innovation.
