Maximum 4-minute wait for Expo Metro lines

By Ni Yinbin  |   2009-4-30  |     NEWSPAPER EDITION

PASSENGERS will only have to wait for up to four minutes for a train on Metro Line 7 by the time next year's Expo starts in May, a Shanghai Metro official said yesterday.

Two Line 7 trains have been transported to the Qihua Road Station in Baoshan District for signal tests.

The Shanghai Shentong Metro Group plans to have Line 7 running by the end of the year with 32 trains.

"Passengers may have to wait for about 10 minutes for a train at first," said Shanghai Shentong Metro Group manager Wang Yiqun. "But by the time of the Expo next May the gap will be down to about 4 minutes."

Wang said 10 more trains would be added to the line during Expo.

The 35-kilometer Line 7 runs from Qihua Road in Baoshan District to the Shanghai New International Expo Center in Pudong New Area, stopping at Shanghai University's Baoshan District campus, Jing'an Temple and Shanghai Expo sites on both sides of the Huangpu River.

The Expo line, as it is also known, will connect with lines 1, 2, 4, 6 and 8. The tunneling work is finished but the stations and electrical work are still under construction.

Every carriage on the orange Line 7 will have four green special seats for the frail and handicapped.

The Shanghai Shentong Metro Group is also planning to add about 1,000 new carriages, in six or eight-carriage trains, to lines 2, 6, 8, 9, 10 and 11 for Expo. The group said the second phase of lines 8 and 9 and the north section of Line 11 will be running by the end of the year.