There is one thought that comes most often to An Baowen, a truck driver from Rizhao, Shan-dong Province, whenever he gets stuck in traffic on the Beijing-Shanghai highway. Why are there no other routes that his truck can be diverted to, allowing him to deliver products to his clients quicker and thus giving him more business?

An's situation is not even that bad when compared to that of other truck drivers. Some of his colleagues traveling on the Beijing-Tibet highway sometimes find themselves stuck on the road for days on end with no way out.

In August 2010, traffic on the Beijing-Tibet highway was paralyzed for more than 20 days in Hebei Province and the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region when the number of trucks transporting coal far exceeded the highway's capacity.

"It was a nightmare for our colleagues who were transporting coal from Inner Mongolia and Shanxi to Beijing because the traffic on the highway was horrible," An said. "They wasted lots of time in the traffic, and only a few of them want to drive on the highway now."

The road ahead

Drivers' demands for more highways to ease traffic jams could be realized in the next few years, when the country expands infrastructure development under the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-15).

The plan will see the construction of a network of highways that will serve virtually the entire population of China by 2020. While analysts say the move is impressive, they have also raised concerns over whether such an extensive network is actually necessary.

Minister of Transport Li Shenglin predicted at a conference Tuesday that the country's total length of highway will surpass that of the US during the 12th Five-Year Plan.

China's total highway length increased from 41,000 kilometers to 74,000 kilome-ters during the 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-10).

According to a highway network development plan issued by the State Council, authorities will construct seven highways starting from Beijing, nine highways ranging from the north to the south of the country, and 18 highways spanning east and west.

Construction on other infrastructure projects, including ports and airports, will also see a rapid increase in the next five years. Civil airports will cover 80 percent of county-level cities and the population by 2015.

Construction of the traffic network will be carried out gradually during the 12th Five- Year Plan period, said Li.

Authorities invested more than 4.7 trillion yuan ($713 billion) in the construction of land and marine traffic infrastructure under the 11th Five Year Plan (2006-10), and the scale and speed of construction will be continued in the next five years, Li said.