The total length of operational rail tracks in China surpassed 160,000 km on Saturday, after the inauguration of a section linking two cities in the southern Guangdong Province.
On Saturday, a high-speed train departed from Meizhou to the provincial capital of Guangzhou, marking the launch of the new route. The new section is part of the Longyan-Longchuan High-Speed Railway, which connects Fujian and Guangdong provinces, spanning a total of 290 kilometers.
According to China State Railway Group Co., Ltd., the operating mileage of China's high-speed rails (HSR) has reached 46,000 kilometers, ranking first in the world and surpassing the combined total of all other countries' HSR networks.
China's railway network now serves a vast portion of the country's urban areas, covering 99 percent of cities with populations over 200,000, while HSR serves 96 percent of cities each with more than 500,000 residents.
In addition, approximately 80 percent of the main corridors of the national "eight vertical and eight horizontal" high-speed railway network, outlined in a national medium- and long-term railway network plan released in 2016, have been completed.
"The planned total scale is approximately 45,000 kilometers. As of now, about 80 percent of the main corridors of the 'eight vertical and eight horizontal' rail network have been completed and put into operation, and around 15 percent are under construction. Among these, the Beijing-Shanghai corridor, the Beijing-Harbin/Beijing-Hong Kong-Macao corridor, the Qingdao-Yinchuan corridor, the Land Bridge corridor, the Shanghai-Kunming corridor, and the Guangzhou-Kunming corridor have been fully connected, while the planning and construction of the unfinished sections of other corridors are being accelerated," said Guo Chunjiang, an official with the Development and Reform Department of China State Railway Group.
Behind the 160,000 kilometers of railway operating mileage is a significant improvement in railway transport capacity and a noticeable change in passenger travel experiences.
Currently, the maximum daily capacity for passenger trains across the national railway network has reached 12,987 trains, a 184 percent increase over the 4,563 trains in 2012. Among these, high-speed rail trains account for over 10,000, reflecting a 426 percent surge from 2012. At the same time, the way passengers purchase tickets and travel has also improved.
"We have built the 12306 ticketing system, which boasts the largest global traffic and transaction scale. It has 865 million registered users, with a daily ticket-selling capacity of over 20 million tickets. The proportion of online ticket purchases is around 85 percent under normal conditions, exceeding 90 percent on peak days. This has changed the past practice of passengers waiting in long lines at train stations to buy tickets," said Yan Ying, an official with the Passenger Transport Department of China State Railway Group.
As of August, China had equipped a total of 4,703 standard high-speed train EMUs - with each unit comprising eight coaches - including 1,722 Fuxing train units. The railway system has fully implemented electronic tickets, with nearly 17 billion electronic tickets sold cumulatively. Passengers can now travel through any train station nationwide using just their ID card, enabling "one ID for all travel."
China's operating railway hits 160,000 km
