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previously, people across the country witnessed the completion of the first expressway and the spread of rural road construction. in the next ten years, new technologies and new processes will help the continued development of smart highways.

article | "finance" intern wu yuhang

highways are the most important mode of transportation for people to travel. according to official statistics, highway passenger traffic will account for 92.3% of the cross-regional movement of people in 2023, making it the main force responsible for passenger transport.

when you drive through busy overpasses, speed along highways, and reach remote villages that were once out of reach, it may be difficult to imagine that a few decades ago these roads were far less accessible, convenient and fast than they are today.

when the people's republic of china was founded, most roads were not considered highways. of the 80,700 kilometers of roads, only 30,000 kilometers have pavements. a large number of roads are dirt roads and gravel roads, which can be passed normally when the weather is sunny. however, once it rains, the roads may become impassable.

since 1953, the country has begun planned transportation construction. in 1954, the sichuan-tibet highway and the qinghai-tibet highway were officially opened to traffic, marking the beginning of highway construction in new china.

lhasa, tibet, opening ceremony held in front of the potala palace (photo taken on december 25, 1954). xinhua news agency

in 1978, the total mileage of china's roads increased tenfold, from 80,000 to 890,000 kilometers. however, the road standards were low, with only a few high-grade roads, asphalt roads, and bridges over large rivers, and the average driving speed was only 30 kilometers per hour. "on a sunny day, you are covered in ashes, on a rainy day, you are covered in mud" is a true portrayal of traveling by car at that time.

in the 1980s, many places had national and provincial highways, and it was common to see horse-drawn carriages, ox carts, non-motorized vehicles and a few motorized vehicles traveling together. at this time, about 50 countries in the world already have expressways, while china's expressway construction has just started.

in 1988, china built its first expressway, the hujia expressway (shanghai to jiading), achieving a breakthrough from scratch. in 1990, the shenyang-dalian expressway (shenyang to dalian), known as the "no. 1 road in china", was completed and opened to traffic. since then, china's expressway mileage has entered a stage of rapid growth.

the construction of rural roads has also continued to receive attention. in august 2000, china proposed the implementation of a rural road “access project”. from 2003 to 2004, a total of 192,000 kilometers of rural hardened roads were built across the country, and the amount of construction in one year exceeded the total construction of rural hardened roads in the previous 50 years.

as of the end of 2023, the total domestic highway mileage reached 5.4368 million kilometers, of which the total rural highway mileage was 4.5986 million kilometers, accounting for 84.6% of the total highway mileage; the highway mileage was 183,600 kilometers, including 122,300 kilometers of national highways.

new china's highway construction has transformed from "a branch of a dead tree" into a highway network extending in all directions. today, this network continues to be denser.

highways make traveling more convenient

"if you want to get rich, build roads first." "it's hard to get rich on small roads, but it's easy to get rich on big roads." behind the familiar slogans, the road network is like a winding bloodline, which not only closely connects the vast land, but also serves as a bridge. the path of life has opened up.

data from the ministry of transport shows that as of the end of 2023, the highway mileage will be 183,600 kilometers, including 122,300 kilometers of national highways.

this was not the case in transportation before. due to underdeveloped roads, travel is quite difficult, and the flow of people between regions is inactive and limited in scope. take transportation along the yangtze river as an example. before there were expressways, transportation mainly relied on ferries and ordinary roads with poor conditions, which usually took a long time.

on october 31, 1988, the shanghai-jiaxing expressway was officially opened to traffic. source: internet

lu yunfeng, a professor in the department of sociology at peking university, recalled his study journey in 1994, "it takes five days to take a ship from wushan to nanjing. if there is a flood and navigation is prohibited, you will have to wait a few more days; the return trip will take nearly a week. ".

the section from chongqing to yichang usually took three to five days by traditional passenger ship in an era when only waterways were available. it takes one to two days to take an ordinary highway or national highway, but if you choose a highway, the time is shortened to seven or eight hours.

countless places like chongqing and yichang have greatly shortened travel time due to high-speed connectivity.

the latest data from the ministry of transport shows that from january to august 2024, 43.97 billion cross-regional personnel movements were completed, including 40.29 billion highway personnel movements, a year-on-year increase of 5.4%.

this number continues to grow. on september 28, 2024, the yunnan huaping to lijiang expressway project (hereinafter referred to as "huali expressway") was officially opened to traffic. a section of the national highway network g4216 chengdu to lijiang expressway has ended the history of different expressways in two neighboring states and cities, lijiang, yunnan and panzhihua, sichuan. the driving time will be shortened from more than 6 hours to more than 2 hours.

source: ic

the benefits of road construction are particularly prominent in rural areas and remote mountainous areas. these areas were once blocked by traffic and lacked contact with the outside world. not only was it difficult for people to travel, goods from the mountains could not be sold, and goods from the city could not be brought in. transportation became the biggest obstacle to economic development.

in august 2000, china proposed the implementation of the rural road “access project”, and the construction of rural hardened roads accelerated rapidly. since 2014, the ministry of transport has promoted the construction of "four good rural roads", proposing to build, manage, protect and operate rural roads well.

as of the end of 2023, the total mileage of rural roads was 4.5986 million kilometers, accounting for 84.6% of the total mileage of roads. among them, there are 697,000 kilometers of county roads, 1.243 million kilometers of rural roads, and 2.659 million kilometers of village roads, of which 91.8% are asphalt and cement roads.

nowadays, goods in the city can reach every household in the village through convenient e-commerce and logistics, and high-quality agricultural products from the countryside can be brought to the city's dining tables in a short time.

millions of tons of agricultural products such as corn, potatoes, and onions from jinchuan district, jinchang city, gansu province are mainly shipped to shandong, guangdong, henan, hubei and other places. yuyang district, yulin city, shaanxi province also has a large transportation volume of agricultural products such as corn, watermelon, yams, and potatoes, which are mainly shipped to guangdong, shandong, guizhou, chongqing and other places.

roads were built across mountains, bridges were built across rivers, highway construction connected points into lines and then into networks, and natural chasms became thoroughfares.

maybe you often see the mysterious number "71118" but don't know its meaning. it actually refers to the national highway network "7-shot, 11-vertical, and 18-horizontal". "7-shot" refers to the 7 radial lines starting from the capital, while "11 vertical" and "18 horizontal" connect the north and south respectively. thing.

this was proposed in the 2013 version of the "national highway network plan (2013-2030)". in the latest plan released in 2022, 12 urban circle lines, 11 parallel lines and 58 tie lines were added on this basis. , adjusted the direction of 6 existing planned routes.

the latest plan points out that by 2035, the total planned scale of the national highway network will be approximately 461,000 kilometers, consisting of the national expressway network and the ordinary national highway network, approximately 162,000 kilometers (including approximately 8,000 kilometers of long-term prospects) and approximately 299,000 kilometers respectively. a modern, high-quality national highway network with extensive coverage, complete functions, intensive efficiency, green intelligence, safety and reliability will be basically built.

calculate the economic accounts, the road is not just a road

at the beginning of reform and opening up, economic development urgently required the construction of more roads.

at that time, the country's financial resources were limited, and transportation projects that had been included in the national plan did not have enough funds. how to build more roads?

source: ic

some provinces are showing off their unique abilities to find solutions. at that time, the road maintenance fee collection standard stipulated by the state was generally 6%-8% of the freight, with a maximum of no more than 10%. in 1972, with the approval of the provincial government, shandong province levied road maintenance fees at 12% of the freight. the profits of transportation companies did not suffer as a result. instead, as the efficiency of automobile transportation improved, it became the highest in the country.

in 1981, guangdong province took the lead in proposing the idea of ​​"building roads with loans and repaying loans with tolls", setting a precedent in the country for "maintaining bridges with bridges and roads with roads". by introducing foreign investment, guangdong converted the ferry into a bridge and implemented "tolls for crossing the bridge, and tolls for loan repayment".

at that time, the ministry of transport proposed a series of measures to raise funds for highway construction with reference to some practices abroad and in china's shandong and guangdong provinces. in 1985, the "vehicle purchase surcharge collection method" was implemented, which provided a long-term and relatively stable source of funds for highway construction, maintenance and renovation by increasing road maintenance fees, collecting vehicle purchase fees and vehicle tolls.

beginning in 2017, a pilot program was launched to issue special bonds for local government toll roads, which means that in the future, the government's new toll roads will no longer rely on bank loans to raise funds, but will "build as many roads as they issue bonds."

this is because under the previous loan road construction model, some places borrowed money casually, resulting in an increasing debt scale. the high financing costs of bank loans caused excessive pressure on the government to repay loans and interest. therefore, in order to control the scale of debt and avoid debt risks, special government toll road bonds have become the only channel for the government to build toll roads, and the bonds are included in the management of local government special bond limits.

under the new "road debt" model, highway construction continues to develop steadily.

according to the 2023 transportation industry development statistical bulletin, 2.824 billion yuan of road fixed asset investment was completed throughout the year. among them, 1,595.5 billion yuan was completed for expressways, 613.6 billion yuan was completed for ordinary national and provincial highways, and 484.3 billion yuan was completed for rural roads. throughout the year, 832 poverty-stricken counties nationwide completed an investment of 718.3 billion yuan in highway fixed assets.

after the road is built, the next question to consider is how to bring about growth?

the role of highways continues to expand. in the past, they only served as transportation functions, but now they have also become landscape roads and tourism roads. in the new era, the road has a new meaning.

national highway 318 is a typical example. it is the dream road that countless self-driving people must drive in this life. the chengdu-lhasa line of national highway 318 is the sichuan-tibet line built from 1950 to 1954.

since its completion and opening to traffic, the sichuan-tibet line has been a transportation artery connecting tibet and the mainland, transporting rich materials from the mainland to tibet and allowing more high-quality products from the snowy plateau to enter the mainland market.

because of its rich natural scenery along the line, the sichuan-tibet line also attracts many self-driving tourists. driving on the sichuan-tibet line, as the altitude gradually increases, you can have a panoramic view of different landforms such as plains, plateaus, mountain canyons, snow-capped mountains and glaciers. the sichuan-tibet line is also known as "china's most beautiful landscape avenue".

national highway 318 extends on the maoya grassland. source: ic

on the southern tip of hainan island, there is a 988-kilometer highway with a main line. it "selects the route based on the scenery and connects the scenery with the line." it passes through 9 categories of 84 scenic areas along the way, forming a "pearl" that connects the many beautiful scenery on the island. necklace". on december 18, 2023, the hainan island tourist highway was fully opened to traffic, and many attractions on this road have become popular check-in places.

every year, a large number of new self-driving routes emerge on social media, including many niche treasure roads. tourists are willing to experience the beautiful natural scenery or rich traditional culture through self-driving.

highways are not just roads, but also the blood of regional economic development. they are like capillaries spreading across the earth, delivering a steady stream of power for economic development.

creating job opportunities, promoting business activities, and assisting the development of tourism resources... today, there are endless possibilities for growth.

from artificial construction to smart highways

looking back on the past, highway construction has overcome many ups and downs. from the original primitive road construction methods to today's modern mechanized and efficient construction, from simple roads made of dirt and gravel to today's flat avenues of asphalt concrete, highway construction technology has achieved a qualitative leap.

when the sichuan-tibet and qinghai-tibet highways were being built in the early 1950s, 110,000 road-building soldiers and civilians wielded shovels and issued a heroic oath to "let the mountains bow their heads and ask the rivers to make way." with their strong will to life, they carved out the "road to heaven" inch by inch. , created a miracle in the history of highway construction.

by 1997, the construction method of the first expressway in heilongjiang province was still very primitive. "the technical means are incomparable to today's. they all rely on manual measurements with measuring tapes and flower poles every 50 meters." liu guofeng of heilongjiang provincial highway survey and design institute recalled.

in recent years, the hong kong-zhuhai-macao bridge and the shenzhen-zhongshan corridor have been completed and opened to traffic, achieving a number of major breakthroughs in highway construction. new technologies, new equipment, new materials, and new processes have been used from island and tunnel projects to islands, tunnels, bridges, and waterways. from the two-way six-lane reinforced concrete structure immersed tube tunnel to the two-way eight-lane steel shell concrete immersed tube tunnel, china's construction technology continues to surpass the international and itself, setting many world records.

currently, china is developing smart highways, integrating new generation information technologies such as artificial intelligence, the internet of things, and big data with all aspects of highway construction and management to intelligently manage the highway construction process, intelligently monitor highway infrastructure conditions, and intelligently regulate traffic. traffic flow, etc. have been used in practice.

hong kong-zhuhai-macao bridge photo source: ic

the beijing-xiongong expressway is one of the first smart highway pilot projects of the ministry of transport. when driving on the beijing-xiongong expressway, intelligent equipment can be seen everywhere: smart lighting poles, intelligent snow melting and deicing, intelligent traffic analysis... which has greatly improved the driving safety and efficiency.

smart highways are also the basis for realizing "vehicle-road-cloud integration". through advanced communication and sensing technologies, real-time sensing information obtained by road infrastructure is transmitted to the vehicle cloud. the vehicle cloud analyzes, controls and responds to road conditions, thereby improving driving. safety and efficiency.

puyuan avenue in puyuan town, tongxiang, zhejiang province is an epitome of china's digital and intelligent roads. as a "holographic digital road", it realizes real-time control of variable lanes through intelligent sensing and intelligent computing, effectively managing road structural congestion.

now, china's highway construction has moved to a higher technical level, is at the forefront of the world, and continues to develop in the direction of intelligence and greening.

the ministry of transport's "opinions on promoting the digital transformation of highways and accelerating the construction and development of smart highways" plans to fully realize the digital transformation of highways by 2035 and build two systems of physical highways and digital twin highways that are safe, convenient, efficient, green and economical.

on the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the founding of the people's republic of china, we never forget where we came from - from the original muddy trails to the criss-crossing highway network today, from ordinary traffic roads to modern smart highways, every step of highway construction creates immortality milestone.