Archive for the 'bullet bus' Category

According to the Beijing Public Transport Group Beijing’s public transport system served what we are told is a passenger volume of 4.6 billion person-times in 2007, while the bus system alone catered for four billion person-times, up 13% over the previous year. I think we can do without this person-times nonsense.

The word passengers serves the purpose very well.

What made it work the most was price.

The bus fare was 1RMB (13 U.S. cents) was adopted on 1 January 2007, and transit cardholders received a 60 to 80% discount.

Subway tickets were RMB2 with no differentiating prices.

Beijing spent almost half of its transportation infrastructure budget on its bus system ahead of the 2008 Olympic Games.

Li Jianguo, deputy director of the Beijing Municipal Committee of Communications who is plainly a person with a very clear idea of the problem said, ‘It has been proved that a market-oriented public transport system can not ease traffic. So the government plans to develop itas public welfare.’

These words should be written in letters of gold and placed on the desk of every transport minister in the world.

More than 80% of Beijing residents acknowledged a considerable reduction of transportation costs.
More than 60% considered it effective in helping to curb traffic congestion.

Beijing now has five subway lines with a total length of 142 kilometers. They include Line 2 covering the downtown area, Line 1 and the Batong line connecting east and west parts of the town, Line 13 running through the northern part of the town and suburbs, and Line 5, connecting the south to the north.
Currently, five new subway routes are under construction including a 28-km line linking downtown area to Beijing Capital International Airport.

According to Beijing Morning Post the combined length of subway lines is expected to reach 561 kilometers by 2015, the longest in the world, with a capacity of carrying nine million passengers a day.
Source: People’s Daily Online

The Shanghai-Beijing high-speed railway IS going to happen because in the next few days contractors will be chosen and work will start almost immediately. This is a massive scheme — a bigger investment even than the Three Gorges project.

Five construction groups are tendering to build the 1,318-kilometer railway.

The project has been divided into six sections for contracts and the combined investment involved is said to reach about RNB100 billion yuan (US$13.7 billion).

The total cost will be twice that as the budget needed to includes trains, management and logistics. The Ministry of Railways will fund nearly 80% of it.

The high-speed rail link, scheduled for completion in five years, will cut by more than half the travelling time between Shanghai and the capital — from 12 hours to less than five.

The trains will travel at up to 350 kilometers per hour.

The first bullet bus — an unfortunate name which I think could do with improvement — in China has been on display at the Beijing Exhibition Hall. The bus is 25 m long and 2.5 m wide, and consists of 3 carriages. It is all advanced technology, with security and performance built in. Oddly, no mention is made of comfort. Perhaps that is a given.
Source: China.com