Shanghai authorities have begun tightening restrictions for non-local hukou (household registration) registering in the city's driving schools. The move is intended to prevent people from getting their driver's licenses outside of their hukou district.

The newest regulation issued by the Vehicle Administrative Office of the Shanghai Municipal Public Security Bureau said the number of classes for non-local hukou holders should not exceed 45 percent of all the available classes.  And the total number of driving students should not be more than 23,000 every month.

The regulation was drafted in accordance with the provisions of the Traffic Management Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security. The bureau says the number of the people who try to get driving licenses outside of their hukou should be in accordance to the local population.

"We need to control the number of people taking this test," Sun Guofu, the press officer with the Shanghai Traffic Police, told the Global Times on Tuesday. "Non-local hukou holders are not prohibited from taking driving classes in Shanghai, but we do have limited resources."

After the new regulation took effect Saturday, the cost of driver training shot up. The price has increased by 1,000 to 2,000 yuan ($154.6 to $309.2) on average for non-locals. The cost used to be the same for both locals and non-locals.

"We lost about 50 percent of the students who have already enrolled in our classes. If they are unwilling to pay an extra 1,000 yuan in learning fees, we have to let them withdraw from the classes and return their money to them," Wu, a female staff member from the Kong Gang driving school, told the Global Times.

Kunshan driving school, which used to be based in Kunshan in Jiangsu Province, has moved to Shanghai. Zhang, a driving instructor from the school, told the Global Times they moved their training classes to Shanghai partly because of the issuance of the new regulations.

Sun Guofu also told the Global Times that Shanghai Traffic Police would start to crack down on people making up fake residence permits to participate in driving tests and the involved organizations would be barred from organizing tests.