Zhang Modi, a 24-year-old office worker from Beijing, hopes one day to tour Western China in his dream car a jeep.

But now he has to put up with a second-hand car that lacks air conditioning and can regularly be seen stuck in one of the capital's many traffic jams.

He lives in Daxing District and it takes him 45 minutes on average to commute between his home and office in downtown Beijing.

He sometimes takes the bus or subway when going shopping, as parking can be a nightmare on bustling commercial streets.

Still, he says public transport is time-consuming and inconvenient.

On weekends, he likes to take his car to the outskirts of Beijing to get that "out of city" feeling at Beijing's suburban nature resorts.

"The car has made more things possible. I can go wherever I want, and don't have to worry about troublesome transfers between the bus, taxi and subway," he said. "I plan to buy an environmentally friendly jeep in the future."

Zhang falls into the group that researchers call "highly mobile" people with private cars as well as money to afford various types of motor vehicles and to travel away from home almost at will.

This group accounts for about 7 percent of China's population, according to the 2005 Foton Chinese Index for Mobility released this month. They are businesspeople, office workers, professionals as well as government officials.

The first of its kind in China, the index is derived from a mobility survey jointly conducted by Beijing-based Beiqi Foton Motor Co Ltd, Horizon Research Group and the Centre of Industrial Development and Environmental Governance of Tsinghua University.

The survey offers an insight into Chinese people's mobility. It shows to what extent people rely on motor vehicles in social and economic activities, and how private cars will further influence people's way of thinking and lifestyle.

It took researchers a year to complete the study, which involved questionnaires answered by 3,914 adults distributed in 21 urban and rural areas.

The survey revealed that the Chinese have taken great strides in increasing their mobility. Cars play a hugely prominent role in this, but there remain other avenues to explore.

"The concept of mobility doesn't simply refer to buying or driving cars. It deals with both private and public transport, and social and economic values supported by peoples' vehicle usage," said Yuan Yue, Phd, with Horizon Research Group.

The researchers came up with what they call a "mobility index," in which the Chinese graded 58.33 out of 100.

Out of a full score of 100, private car ownership accounts for 12.27; access to public transportation 9.32; frequency in using all types of motor vehicles 8.61; mileage in traveling and its radius 4.64; the role of motor vehicles upon life 14.56 and expectations for mobility 8.93.

"To be simple, the index for mobility answers how people use different means of transportation, how they feel using them, and their expectations for the future of transport," Yuan added.

Chinese residents nowadays are able to choose from a diverse range of vehicles as the country has rapidly upgraded its traffic facilities and network construction.

However, researchers were quick to point out the country's outing frequency and mileage ratio is still low when compared with developed countries.

Nearly 53 percent of urban respondents and 67 percent of rural interviewees said they traveled no more than 100 kilometers a year.

That means the majority of the population enjoy their social activities within a limited radius, even though communication is far more convenient nowadays.

For most people, buses, taxis and other public transport serve as the primary conveyance when building a career or, say, shopping, but they don't see motor vehicles as a way to expand social networks, raise social status or enrich leisure time.

Researchers, meanwhile, found that a growing divide exists between the mobility of urban and rural people and eastern and western China.

Eastern China, basically Jiangsu, Zhejiang and Fujian provinces as well as Shanghai Municipality, scored the highest mobility, with an index of 64.25. Central regions, including Hunan, Hubei, Henan, Anhui and Jiangxi provinces, graded 56.15.

People of low mobility an index score of 20 to 40 made up nearly 68 percent of all interviewees. They were mainly farmers in underdeveloped areas in central and western parts of the country.

In contrast, the high and moderately mobile people were mainly distributed in more developed cities and provinces, including a small proportion of well-off farmers.

It is in rural areas that the widest divide between the highly and less mobile people exists.

But interestingly, these same rural residents own more private vehicles than their urban counterparts with 38.8 percent of respondents being private vehicle owners. Only 8.7 percent of urbanites and 22 percent of those living in towns owned private motor vehicles.

The researchers put the wide mobility divide, yet high rate of vehicle ownership in rural areas, to the low-grade vehicles rural people possess, such as motorbikes and tricycles. In addition, they seldom use public transport.

In big cities, researchers found the rapidly growing number of private vehicles on the roads, the unbalanced development of traffic management, and environmental deterioration were holding back the mobility of urban dwellers.

The commuting convenience of seven cities Beijing, Shanghai, Wuhan, Xi'an, Harbin, Chengdu and Taiyuan was also examined.

Although Shanghai residents live farther away from their places of work than people in the six other cities, they enjoy the highest average commute speed of 20.7 kilometers per hour.

In contrast, Beijing, with the second longest distance between home and work, only manages an average speed of 13.2 kilometers per hour.

People in Chengdu lead an even slower life. It takes them nearly two hours to get work, even though they live only 6.6 kilometers away from work on average.

The survey also showed that mobility is closely tied to income. It found that for every increase of 450 yuan (US$56.25) in income, one is willing to go an extra 100 kilometers for an outing.

Although people said they were dissatisfied with urban traffic and public transport, they were optimistic about their future on wheels.

About 6.5 percent of all respondents plan to buy a car in the coming year. And 16.5 percent of car owners said were looking to raise their level of social interaction because they had a car. Eighteen per cent of those surveyed had high expectations for public transport, especially long-distance buses and aeroplanes, as traveling grows in popularity.

The survey will be conducted on a yearly basis and an index released alongside it.

The researchers want the index to provide a reference for both city authorities and vehicle manufacturers when formulating policy.

"What is the optimum index that fits social development? Is it true that the higher the index goes, the better? And what is a perfect growth model for the survey and index? These were questions the index has not answered," said Professor Liu Qinglong with the School of Public Policy and Management at Tsinghua University.

"The index system needs to be improved as we deepen our understanding of a balanced relationship between humans and vehicles."

(China Daily July 29, 2005)