Speed isn't everything on China's new rails
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Another concern is to optimize the passenger transport structure. According to the statistics in 2009, road capacity took up 93.3 percent of China's total passenger capacity, railway 5.11 percent, civil aviation 0.76 percent and water transport 0.75 percent. Road transportation takes too big a slice of the pie and it is not an optimal structure.
We started introducing advanced foreign rail technology and equipment during the seventh Five-Year Plan (1986-1990), and independently manufactured high-speed trains such as the China Star and the Pioneer in the 1990s. Although they were never put into operation, the related research cultivated talent and created favorable conditions for new developments.
GT: High-speed bullet trains are sometimes criticized as impractical. Why are there so many empty seats on some trains?
Sun: The reasons are complicated.
Take the Shanghai-Hangzhou high railway. People in Shanghai previously took the T, K, or D high-speed trains to go to Hangzhou from the Shanghai South Railway Station. After the Shanghai-Hangzhou high-speed railway was unveiled, the railway authorities cancelled all these trains and people have to go to Hongqiao Railway Station to take bullet trains.
Although bullet trains are much quicker than the usual high speed trains, as Hongqiao Railway Station is located in the suburb of Shanghai, far away from the downtown, passengers need to spend much more time on traveling in the city. It is not convenient for them, so more and more are taking coaches as the bus station is downtown.
Rail development in our country started fairly late and freight lines developed before passenger lines. Passenger rail should be in the center of the city, and freight rail on the outskirts, but the situation in China is the opposite.
Some experts have suggested upgrading the existing freight rail lines into high-speed rail and rebuilding freight lines in the suburbs, but whether this is feasible is still under discussion.
We should look at Taiwan's high-speed rail as a warning, where the bullet trains, thanks to improper planning, have already lost over NT$70 billion ($2.32 billion).
Chinese passengers are cost sensitive. The development of transportation products and services should be in accordance with the demands of the market.
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