FULL revenue operation on the 18·5 km metro Line 1 in Guangzhou began on June 28. Limited passenger services have been running since February 16, following the formal completion of the line last December (RG 2.99 p71). Guangzhou becomes the fifth city in China with an operational metro.
The east-west Line 1 serving 16 stations has a capacity of 28 000 passengers/h each way, with trains running at 4 min intervals. Trains run at 80 km/h giving a commercial speed of 36 km/h.
Line 1 was equipped by the German Consortium Guangzhou Metro, led by Siemens Verkehrstechnik whose share of the contract was worth over DM400m. Adtranz supplied the 21 six-car trains for DM260m. Financing was arranged by Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau.
