Nanjing middle school combats traffic congestion with 'smart measures'

Roads around schools congested with cars trying to secure a parking spot is a common sight in Chinese cities. A middle school in Nanjing, the capital of Jiangsu province found ways to combat this– by staggering the pick-up time and designating parking points to reduce the traffic.

The Yuhuatai Middle School in the city, including a junior high, a high school department and international sections, has more than 5,500 students, generating approximately 3,400 private vehicles dropping off or picking up them daily. Before, most of the parents who were eager to collect their kids would aim to park on the roads that were nearest to the school. And the long wait lines and poor visibility often caused safety concerns.

To address the problem, the school staggered the collecting time after school into different periods corresponding to the grade levels, with a minimum interval of 20 minutes for each batch of students. At the same time, customized parking permits were given to parents that marked their children's grades and designated parking points, which allowed local police to direct traffic precisely.

Considering the limited parking spaces on the roads near school, the school also divided pick-up zones and waiting areas to efficiently improve the usage of the roads.

Since the measures taken in March, the parking process around the school has been smoothed significantly, with the number of traffic congestion incidents and petitions demanding traffic solutions around the school decreasing by 82 percent compared to the same period last year, and by 63 percent compared to the previous month.