International Railway Journal - January 2008 - (Page 28) Asian metros Shanghai metro aims to be Number 1 Computer-rendering of one of the trains that Bombardier will build for Line 9. The design has yet to be finalised. Shanghai had cause to celebrate last month with the opening of three new metro lines, virtually doubling the size of the network. This is part of a massive expansion plan to create a 13-line metro by 2012, reports David Briginshaw. exclude migrant workers engaged in Shanghai’s huge construction projects. of whom there are around 5 million at any one time. More metro lines are under construction comprising the southern section of the circular Line 4, phase 2 of Line 9, lines 10 and 11, and extensions to some existing lines. Beyond this, the city has just announced plans to build two more lines totalling 25.6km by 2012 (IRJ December 2007 p10). Huge expansion C HINA’s largest city, Shanghai, took the highly unusual step on December 28 of opening three new metro lines in one go. This added 87.4km to the existing 95km network comprising four heavy metro lines and one light metro line (Line 5). Shanghai is pushing hard to expand its metro as fast as possible to catch up with rapid growth in its population. The city had 16 million inhabitants in 2000, but by last year the population had already gone past the 18 million mark, and the number of people living in the city is expected to grow by another million by 2010. These figures This expansion is part of a massive Yuan 200 billion ($US 27 billion) investment programme launched in 2005. Shanghai Shentong Metro says it will have 11 lines totalling 400km in operation in time for World Expo 2010, which Shanghai is hosting. Completion of the so-called basic network of 13 lines in 2012 will expand the metro to about 500km with more than 300 stations. If Shanghai achieves this, it will have the largest metro in the world. By 2012, the number of passengers is expected to reach 8 million a day compared with 3 million today, and the proportion of commuters travelling by metro is forecast to jump from 15% today to 45%. The lines that have just opened comprise lines 6 and 8 and phase 1 of Line 9 covering the western section. All three lines, plus Line 7, are equipped with the latest communications-based train control (CBTC) system under a contract awarded to a consortium led by Alcatel Shanghai Bell, and including Thales and Shanghai Automation Instrumentation. Thales has supplied its SelTrac MS system which is designed so that its functionality can be ramped up in stages. In the case of Shanghai, SelTrac MS will initially provide automatic train protection and manual train operation, with full automatic train operation planned two stages later. Thales says that SelTrac MS enables metros with tight or unpredictable construction schedules to start running trains as soon as possible ahead of full completion of either individual lines or a network. SelTrac MS allows bi-directional operation, 90-second headways (100 seconds on Line 9), and an open-standards wireless data communications system between track and trains. The system is interoperable, 28 IRJ January 2008
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