"According to the information released by the current government regulatory authorities, the bus industry and bus market will face major changes in the next few years. First, in terms of industry development, the industry will be integrated by raising the threshold to improve the overall competitiveness of the industry. Second, market development will be driven by industrial upgrading to change the past extensive expansion trend."

    This is a speech by She Zhenqing, deputy secretary-general of the Bus Branch of the China Highway Society and chief analyst of the National Bus Statistics Information Network, at the National Road Passenger Transport Enterprise High-tech Application Forum on the afternoon of May 12.

    In his opinion, due to the impact of the speed increase of trains and the rapid growth of cars, the passenger car industry will focus on structural adjustment during the 12th Five-Year Plan period, and the increase in domestic and export sales will not be large. He predicts that the total demand for passenger cars during the 12th Five-Year Plan period will be about 1.43 million vehicles, an increase of 67.25% over the 11th Five-Year Plan period, and the average annual demand will be about 286,000 vehicles.

    Although the increase is not large, She Zhenqing believes that there are still three positive factors driving the demand for the bus market: First, there is a large space for the development of rural buses, which is closely related to two national policies, namely the demonstration project of urban and rural passenger transport integration and the demonstration project of rural passenger transport area operation; second, the urban public bus market will continue to grow rapidly. According to the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan for Urban Public Transport Development", at the end of the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", the total number of public buses and trams in the country will reach 600,000, an increase of about 200,000 compared with 2010. At the same time, according to relevant statistical data, 70% of the existing public buses will need to be ***d during the "Twelfth Five-Year Plan", with a total of about 280,000, and there is considerable room for growth; third, the development of the emerging bus market is worth looking forward to, such as the development space for school buses. Taking the United States as a reference, the total demand for school buses in the future will at least double the market space for buses. Conservative estimates show that the total demand for emerging bus markets will be about 50,000 vehicles in the next five years.

    When it comes to the specific forms of result adjustment, She Zhenqing listed the following five forms:

    First, policy regulation will change the industry structure of being numerous, small and scattered. On October 18, 2010, the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued the draft of the "Administrative Rules for Access to Commercial Vehicle Manufacturers and Products" for comments, which stipulates the total investment, self-owned funds and production license conditions of commercial vehicle manufacturers, especially the strict control of the production qualifications of bus chassis, and sets a high entry threshold for new entrants into the bus field. In addition to the requirements for production capacity, at least three to five bus brands will be eliminated from the market every year. The implementation of this policy will change the industry structure of being numerous, small and scattered.

    Second, the policy stipulates that new capacity shall not be added to routes with a passenger bus load rate of less than 70%. On August 13, 2010, the Ministry of Transport issued the "Notice on Further Strengthening the Regulation of Road Passenger Transport Capacity and Promoting Energy Conservation and Emission Reduction in the Industry", which clearly requires strict control of new road passenger routes and capacity, improvement of passenger route and capacity licensing management methods, acceleration of structural adjustment, and improvement of the actual load rate of operating passenger buses. This has a fundamental impact on the bus market, and the result of this impact will inevitably promote the structural adjustment of the bus industry.

    The third is the policy requirement to increase batches and reduce brands. Wang Shuiping, deputy director of the Road Transport Department of the Ministry of Transport, once said, "The complexity of vehicle models can be said to be a disaster for the transportation industry," and clearly pointed out that "this kind of situation of multinational brands must be withdrawn and appropriately concentrated." She Zhenqing believes that this is a signal from the government regulatory department to guide the bus market to achieve structural adjustment, which should be taken seriously by bus companies.

    Fourth, driven by national policies and government regulatory departments, public transportation will become a trend. Urban public transportation and road passenger transportation are no longer two cross-industry and cross-departmental passenger transportation modes, but will break the boundaries between cities and cities to form a unified planning, unified management, and seamlessly connected highway passenger transportation network. Under this situation, the market share of public buses among large and medium-sized buses will continue to increase.

    Fifth, by revising the operating bus rating standards, the technical trend of bus products is guided. The revision of the 2010 edition of the "Operating Bus Type Classification and Rating Standards" mainly revolves around the three main lines of bus safety, energy saving and environmental protection. The revised content highlights the central idea of safety-oriented, energy saving and consumption reduction, emission reduction and environmental protection. First, the revised content adds requirements for the installation of automatic fire extinguishing devices and temperature alarm systems in the rear engine compartment, requirements for roll stability, requirements for passenger door emergency controllers, tire pressure monitoring alarm systems, and regulations for satellite positioning systems, etc., to guide bus products to develop in a "safer" direction; secondly, the revised content also adds requirements for fuel consumption limits and regulations for electromagnetic fan clutches or other energy-saving fan cooling systems, which is of great significance to promoting the transformation of the development mode of the transportation industry; at the same time, it also clearly stipulates that the emission limits of operating buses must comply with GB3847, GB11340, GB14762, GB14763, GB18285 and the national requirements for energy conservation and emission reduction. She Zhenqing concluded: "Safety, energy saving and environmental protection are the eternal themes of the bus industry and the fundamental goals of bus technology development. The contents of this revision are the focus of bus technology progress and national policy attention in recent years, and will play a positive guiding role in the development of future bus products."

    Finally, She Zhenqing pointed out that since the reform and opening up, the bus industry has achieved remarkable results in structural adjustment and industrial upgrading. In the next few years, driven by the national regulatory policies, this structural adjustment and industrial upgrading will accelerate, which is a requirement for national economic development and an objective requirement for the growth of the bus industry.