Shanghai’s metro line wins award

The total length of the subway network in Shanghai will be expanded to 1,000 kilometers by 2025. Gao erqiang / china daily

The city government and its rail transit experts received an affirmation for their innovation efforts when Shanghai’s metro line 10 was awarded with the International Federation of Consulting Engineers (FIDIC) Award of Merit earlier in September. The prestigious awards are considered to be the Nobel Prize for international engineering.

The application of the fully automatic driving system, a first in China’s rail transit history, is said to be one of the main reasons behind the win.

In 2014, Line 10, boosted by its automatic driverless operation system, boasted a punctuality rate of 99.97 percent and the lowest rate of failure and delay amongst all the other metro lines in Shanghai.

Measuring 36.2 kilometers across 31 underground stations, the Phase I project of Line 10 started service in April 2010. Linking the city’s southwest and northeast areas, the first phase ran from New Jiangwan Town to Longxi Road, and it was extended to Hongqiao Railway Station and Hangzhong Road.

The second phase of Line 10 will see extensions northward from New Jiangwan Town to Jilong Road in Pudong New Area, reported xinhuanet.com.

Over the last two decades, Shanghai has developed a giant underground network of 339 stations and 15 lines spanning a total length of 577 kilometers. As the world’s largest metro network, it recorded 8.09 million passenger trips on a daily basis in the first half of 2015.

The total length of the subway network will be expanded to 1,000 kilometers by 2025, and the waiting time for trains at Shanghai’s major metro line stations will be shortened to two minutes in the next five years, Gu Weihua, president of Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co Ltd was quoted as saying by eastday.com.