Commuting traffic is mainly composed of two categories: traffic between home and workplace for adults; traffic between home and school for students (children and adolescents). Because commuting traffic for the people from all walks of life usually takes place at almost the same time, for example, from 6 to 8 in the morning, or from 16 to 18 in the afternoon, it invariably leads to large numbers of vehicles competing for very limited space in downtown areas during the fixed interval of each work day and has thus caused huge traffic volumes of rush hours. In order to alleviate traffic congestions, governments all over the world are now trying to promote public transportation systems such as subways, light railways, tram cars and buses, which have been proved to be efficient and helpful for improvement of both level of service and environmental protection. While the problem of commuting traffic in metropolitan areas of big cities may be relieved by public transportation effectively, it cannot be solved so easily in downtown areas of many Chinese counties, where resources available are relatively limited. In order to better understand the situation of commuting traffic in downtown areas of Chinese counties, investigations have been carried out in four typical counties, whose results have been carefully analyzed to explore characteristics of commuting traffic. The study indicated that more people living in downtown areas of counties tended to use private transportation than those living in metropolitan areas of big cities. Besides, there was great variance between different counties, as far as characteristics of commuting traffic was concerned. This implies that when measures for improvement of commuting traffic are taken into consideration, each county should have its own specific strategies, which are aimed at its unique characteristics. Keywords: characteristics; commuting traffic; downtown areas; counties

CICTP