Xi'an Rail Metro Planning Lessons Learned

Xi’an is a major city of about 8 million population that is located approximately 740 miles southwest of Beijing. Internationally, it is perhaps best known for its historic terra cotta warriors. The city is rapidly growing and traffic congestion has increased along with deterioration of its air quality. Its fleet of 7,700 buses serving 263 routes is being stressed beyond capacity. In response, the city adopted an ambitious rail metro plan. The current plan is to construct 15 rail Metro lines by 2030. Two lines have opened and another four are under construction. Line 2 opened in 2011 and serves the major north-south corridor. Line 1 opened in 2013 (two years later) and serves a major east-west corridor. To date, the Xi’an Metro is overly successful. Ridership on the first two lines is at capacity of the current resources. The six car trainsets operating on 5 minute headways are at maximum capacity and the crush load trains experience extended station dwell times. Opportunities to reduce headways, lengthen trains and reduce station dwell times along with network expansion implications on these two core lines are critically important issues. This paper describes the current and planned Xi’an Metro and the planning lessons learned to date. Lessons can be learned as much from successful metro implementations, as from those that have disappointed.

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• Supplemental Notes:
  • This paper was sponsored by TRB committee AP065 Standing Committee on Rail Transit Systems.
• Corporate Authors:

  Transportation Research Board

  500 Fifth Street, NW
  Washington, DC  United States  20001
• Authors:
  • Martin, Peter C
  • Yuanqing, Wang
  • Yaxiang, Li
  • Leung, Derek
• Conference:
  • Transportation Research Board 95th Annual Meeting
  • Location: Washington DC, United States
  • Date: 2016-1-10 to 2016-1-14
• Date: 2016

Language

• English

Media Info

• Media Type: Digital/other
• Features: Figures; References; Tables;
• Pagination: 15p
• Monograph Title: TRB 95th Annual Meeting Compendium of Papers

Subject/Index Terms

• TRT Terms: Line extensions (Rail transit); Public transit; Rail transit; Transportation planning
• Geographic Terms: Xi'an (China)
• Subject Areas: Operations and Traffic Management; Planning and Forecasting; Public Transportation; I72: Traffic and Transport Planning;

Filing Info

• Accession Number: 01589036
• Record Type: Publication
• Report/Paper Numbers: 16-1874
• Files: PRP, TRIS, TRB, ATRI
• Created Date: Feb 1 2016 9:26AM