Over the past 30 years, the Chinese economy has experienced unprecedented growth. China is now the second largest world economy, after the US. The growth in the Chinese transport sector has even outpaced that of the economy as a whole: the total number of Chinese motor vehicles has increased from 1.8 million in 1980 to 126.7 million in 2013, and vehicle ownership has grown from 1.8 per 1000 people in 1980 to 93 in 2013 (National Bureau of Statistics of China 2014). China has become the world’s largest car market, with annual sales in 2014 at over 18 million passenger vehicles (Chinese Association of Automobile Manufacturers 2015). Together with the fast expansion of air transport and high-speed rail, motor vehicle growth has helped boost personal mobility in China, creating great accessibility to economic and social benefits for people from the entire population spectrum. Also, the auto sector has become a key pillar of the Chinese economy.