Category Archives: shanghai

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

How many stations are there on the Shanghai Metro?

The Shanghai Metro is one of the longest metro stations in the world. How stations does it have, as of December 2014? That’s a slightly tricky question to answer, for a number of reasons:

Which lines to include?

For the purposes of this article, we’re including the fourteen lines which provide regular metro service: that’s Lines 1 through Line 13 and Line 16.

We don’t include the Jinshan Railway (“Line 22”), as the frequency of trains on the line is not high enough to constitute a rapid transit service, and there is no integrated ticketing with the rest of the network. Similarly, we exclude the Shanghai Maglev train.

Which stations to include?

We include all currently open stations.
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Google Maps are back! Improved street maps in Explore Shanghai for iOS

When Apple introduced iOS6 last year, the Google Maps on iPhones and iPads were replaced by Apple iOS Maps. There have been several well-documented issues with iOS Maps, as well as some China-specific issues which we’ve written about before.

The good news is that today we’re launching the latest version v9.0 of our Explore Shanghai Metro map, which now puts the choice back in your hands! Tap on a station, tap “Street” and then you’ll have a choice of three options:

Google Maps, including a 3D perspective view (try dragging with two fingers)
iOS/Apple Maps
Offline Maps from Open Street Map

It’s another little way we’re making our apps Asia’s best metro maps 🙂

Search tips in the new version of Explore Shanghai for iPhone and iPad

The latest version of ExploreShanghai for iPhone and iPad is available now, and we’ve added a great new feature.

Previously, you could search for station names, now you can also search for tips! What’s great is that other Explore Shanghai users have already added over 1000 tips including points of interest, shops and restaurants. For example, want to know which metro stops are near the Bund? Just search “bund”:

Searching tips is available now for Explore Shanghai on iOS, and coming soon to our other apps!

7 Deadly sins of Shanghai taxi drivers

We collected data from thousands of taxi passengers using the Taxi Crab app for iOS and Android.

5 dead and 18 injured in Shanghai Metro Line 12 construction site accident

Tragic news today, Sina reports that 5 people are dead and 18 injured after an accident at a construction site for the Shanghai Metro Line 12 at Jinsui Road (金穗路) in Pudong. The rush to build China’s infrastructure at a breakneck pace means that such accidents sadly seem to be very common. The cause of the accident is still under investigation.

New apps for 2013 for Beijing Subway and Shanghai Metro

We’re fast approaching the end of the year, and the Beijing Subway and Shanghai Metro are making final preparations for the new lines opening.

In Shanghai, Line 13 is undergoing testing, and three new stations on Line 9 should also open shortly, around December 28th. The Shanghai Metro company have announced that two stations (Daduhe Road and South Qilianshan Road) will not open in the initial phase of Line 13 however.

Meanwhile in Beijing, 4 new lines are getting ready: Line 6, plus extensions to Line 8, Line 9 and Line 10 . All are planned to open on the afternoon of December 30th. One caveat is that the interchange station between Line 1 and Line 9 at Military Museum is not open yet, so trains will not stop at this station on Line 9. Our maps will show Military Museum on Line 1 only for the time being.

We’ve just launched updates to our online interactive maps at ExploreShanghai.com and ExploreBJ.com to show you the latest lines. This includes station names in English and Chinese, and an updated route-planner. Do check out the Metropedia pages for the new construction like Cishousi and Songjiang South Railway Station.

Some information like first/last train times and prices for Shanghai are not yet available and will be added soon. If you see any missing information, please do contact us with links or data to fill in the gaps!

We’ve also updated our Android app for Beijing and Android app for Shanghai with the new lines. And iPhone users, we haven’t forgotten you! Due to the App Store approval process, it will take around 1-2 weeks to get the new versions of our iPhone apps approved. We hope to have them ready for you by early January!

Shanghai Metro Line 13: the Jinshajiang Road Express

This week we’re previewing the new lines expected to open in Shanghai and Beijing in December 2012. Today, Shanghai Metro Line 13.

Remember during Expo 2012 a short segment of Line 13 was used to shuttle visitors to the Expo Park? Well, Line 13 is back, but unfortunately not the part in central Shanghai. The 8km-long phase 1 of Line 13 will head west from Jinshajiang Road station on Line 3/4. It will follow the path of Jinshajiang Road past the outer ring road to Huajiang Road. Here’s a view from Huajiang Road looking east back towards central Shanghai. Line 13 runs roughly parallel to and north of Line 2.

By 2015 Line 13 will be further extended into the center, but here’s what the line is expected to look like by the end of 2012:

Finally, here’s a sneak peek inside Fengzhuang station courtesy of the Metrofans BBS.

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