China State Railway Group has announced its railway expansion strategy under which the network will reach 200,000 km, and the high-speed railway network would have a length of 70,000 km until 2035.
This move is part of a plan which will provide rail transport connection to all cities who have a population of over 200,000 citizens, while the cities with a population of more than 500,000 would benefit high-speed rail services. The coverage rate of high-speed rail connection in the cities with an urban population of more than 1 million reached 94.7%.
The strategy aims at a 40% increase from currently 141,400 km of rail network and the doubling the length of the high-speed rail network, which will allow trains to run at over 250 km/h.
China state-owned railway company said that the country’s high-speed railway network reaches 36,000 km. In July, China has invested more than 67 billion yuan (USD 9.67 billion) in railway infrastructure, a 3.6% y-o-y increase. In July, an investment of 50 billion yuan (USD 7 billion) has been allotted to big and medium-sized projects, a 11.3% year-on-year increase.
The medium and long-term railway network plan unveiled in 2016 outlines an annual investment of 800 billion yuan for the expansion of country’s network. The company says that the scale of the construction reached 70% with the remaining projects currently being under construction. The plan targets a 150,000 km railway network by the end of 2020 of which 30,000 km will form the high-speed railway network.
The company also plans to develop the railway network until 2050 which will create a truly backbone of country’s transport system, providing reliable and interconnected railway transport services within China.
China will also invest to further innovate its railway system involving all the industry supply chain to develop advanced technologies and products. the high-speed railway network will be the first one who will benefit from the new technologies and solution, followed by the conventional rail transport system.
Since the beginning of the year, China has put into commercial operation 1,310 km of new railway lines, of which 733 km are represented by the high-speed railway lines.
The railway expansion strategy aims at shifting road traffic to railway transport and provide effective railway connections through the country. In July, the national company has recorded a 24% increase to 207 million trips. This is up to 39.95 million trips compared to June 2020. According to the company, 7.9 million trips per day were recorded.
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