BEIJING: Three drones circled the Jinan Yellow River Bridge on June 23 in Jinan, capital of Shandong Province, inspecting the segment of the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway (BSHSR) passing through the city.
“New technologies such as 5G, big data, BeiDou navigation and satellite remote sensing are applied in operation management,” Yang Huaizhi, director of the department for equipment safety at Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Railway Co. Ltd. (BSHSR Co.), told Beijing Review.
The instruments on the drone scanned the bridge’s piers, which are difficult to check manually, and sent back the related data for further analysis, according to Yang. “The system is expected to be promoted to the whole route in coming days,” he added.The high-speed line starts from Beijing and ends in Shanghai, after passing through five provincial-level regions, including Tianjin Municipality and Hebei, Shandong, Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, which altogether cover a whopping 27 percent of the country’s population. The line serves 24 railway stations and connects the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region and the Yangtze River Delta, two economically developed areas in China.
With bullet trains running at a record speed of about 350 km per hour along the BSHSR, the travel time between Beijing and Shanghai went from 14 hours to less than five. This provides a convenient lifestyle for those residents living alongside the tracks.Ever since first entering operation in June 2011, the line has transported a total of 1.35 billion passengers, Yan Zuokui, an executive of the BSHSR Co., said at a June 22 press conference to mark the high-speed line’s 10th anniversary. In 2019 alone, BSHSR trains transported some 210 million passengers.
The number of trains running on the 1,318-km-long BSHSR has increased to 568 per day from an initial of 131. “If we add up the distances traveled by all the trains on this line, their sum exceeds 1.58 billion km, 40,000 times the length of the equator,” Yan said.
The high-speed railway has not only made traveling much faster for passengers, but also promoted the integrated development of the regions it passes through. Those cities lying along the tracks have benefited significantly from its operation in terms of social and economic development.A station along the line provides its city with a new and modern hub, according to Yan.
Xuzhou East Railway Station in Jiangsu Province is one of the 24 BSHSR stations. Xu Ning, deputy director of the station who witnessed both its construction and the impact this had on the development of its related district, told Beijing Review, “Here once stood a barren hill covered in weeds, with far fewer residents living in the area. After the station came into being and the BSHSR came running through, a new city hub arose from the ground.”
“It injects impetus into local economic development,” Xu added.
A 31.67-square-km new business area around the station, featuring an industrial park and shopping center, has become a new highlight of the city, Wang Hao, Director of the Xuzhou Development and Reform Commission, told Beijing Review.
– The Daily Mail-Beijing Review News exchange item
