BEIJING -- Beijing has entered its most congested month for traffic as students begin a new school term on Thursday, although traffic on the first morning of the month was down from the previous year.

The traffic index during the morning rush hour on Thursday reached 7.4, 1.4 points lower than expected, said Zhou Zhengyu, director of the city's transportation commission. The number is 15 percent lower than the same period last year.

The traffic index ranges from 0 to 10, with higher numbers representing worse congestion.

The commission has called September "the most congested month" as shopping sprees and family visits for the Mid-Autumn Festival on Sept. 15 and National Day on Oct. 1 are expected, in addition to school-related traffic.
To ease gridlock, the public transportation group of Beijing has added 3,380 bus trips for rush hours this month.

Other long-term measures to ease traffic are in place or planned.

In February, the Beijing municipal government released a plan composed of 46 tasks to ease the traffic congestion, including unblocking dead-end roads and improving connectivity of side roads and minor lanes.

The total length of the city's bike lane system will be extended to 500 km this year and 3,000 km by 2020. By 2020, the number of public bicycles will reach 100,000.

The city will build 1,000 km of urban rail lines from 2016 to 2020 to make urban rail traffic account for 60 percent of the city's public transportation.

According to traffic statistics, the average traffic index in the first half of 2016 was 5.2, down 10.3 percent from the same period last year.