Monthly Archives: August 2013

Goodbye Aerospace Museum, Hello Shendu Highway

The station at the southern terminus of Shanghai Metro Line 8 has been known as Aerospace Museum since it opened in 2009. There’s just one small problem: the museum of that name doesn’t actually exist yet.

Four years later, it’s unclear if the museum will be constructed at this site, and so the Shanghai Metro company has decided to fix this by renaming the station to Shendu Highway (沈杜公路). We’ve updated www.exploreshanghai.com with the new station name, and the name will also be updated in the next updates to our iOS and Android apps.

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Shanghai Metro Line 11 extension opens this weekend!

Good news… the Shanghai Metro is about to get even longer! The Shanghai Metro company has announced that the extension to Line 11 will open on Saturday, August 31 2013.

While the current Line 11 links the northern suburbs of Anting and Jiading with Jiangsu Road station, the new line will add 12 new stations south of Jiangsu Road. The line first heads south, intersecting with Line 10 at Jiaotong University and Line 1 and 9 at Xujiahui.

It then heads south with 4 more stops in Puxi, at Shanghai Swimming Center, Longhua, Yunjin Road and Longyao Road, before heading into Pudong with stops at Oriental Sports Center (Line 6 & 8 interchange), Sanlin, East Sanlin, Pusan Road, Yuqiao and Luoshan Road.

The full list of new stations is:

  • Jiaotong University 交通大学
  • Xujiahui 徐家汇
  • Shanghai Swimming Center 上海游泳馆
  • Longhua 龙华
  • Yunjin Road 云锦路
  • Longyao Road 龙耀路
  • Oriental Sports Center 东方体育中心
  • Sanlin 三林
  • East Sanlin 三林东
  • Pusan Road 浦三路
  • Yuqiao 御桥
  • Luoshan Road 罗山路

Several of the new stations have designs inspired by their locations: Longhua has a gold roof inspired by Longhua Temple while Jiaotong University Station has a literary theme, with artworks based on manuscripts belonging to scientist Qian Xuesen.

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Luoshan Road, the new eastern terminus will be a interchange station with Line 16, anticipated to open at the end of this year. Line 16 will carry on further into Pudong, terminating near Dishui Lake.

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A new version of our Android app is now available on Google Play and an update for our iPhone app is available on the App Store.

What’s the busiest metro line in Shanghai – 2013 edition!

Back in 2010 I analyzed the passenger numbers on the Shanghai Metro’s twelve lines. Earlier this year the Shanghai Metro company released new data, which allows us to compare the growth in passenger numbers across the different metro lines.

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With a 38% increase between 2010 and 2013, Line 2 has overtaken Line 1 to be the busiest line in Shanghai, with 1.65 million daily passenger rides. The biggest increase was Line 10, which rose by more than 5 times, from 120,000 to 680,000 – although it’s worth noting that Line 10 had heavily restricted trial opening hours in 2010. Line 9 and 11 have also seen a near-doubling of traffic.

The only line to see a drop-off between 2010 and 2013 is Line 13, but the segment that was open in 2010 for the World is separate from the segment in Western Shanghai open today.