TrafficInfraTech Magazine Linking People Places & Progress
Capacity: After the Guangzhou-Wuhan high speed service started, 13 of the 45 ordinary train services were cancelled. It was reported that many migrant workers felt forced into either paying far higher train fares, finding alternate means to travel home (e.g. coach) or cancelling plans to return home for the holidays.
Journey Time Savings: On other lines, such as between Nanjing and Shanghai, criticisms concerned the small journey time savings. The non-stop service cut journey times from 128 minutes to 73 minutes. But as of June 2011, there was only one non-stop service per day; a second service completed the journey in 75 minutes; and others, stopping at intermediate stations cut as little as one minute from the old journey times. However, high speed rail fares were 57% more than on ordinary trains!
Financing: Other question marks were raised over the financing of the High Speed Rail programme. In the first quarter of 2011, it was reported that the railway industry made a pre-tax loss of RMB3.7 billion (IR26.58bn). This, compared to several years of significant operating profits, added to what were considered huge construction budgets (RMB700bn was initially planned for 2011). Whilst railways rarely make financial returns (they are normally predicated upon generating economic development benefits to the areas served), this plunge in financial performance was of concern in some quarters.
Safety of the Network: These were more troubling than the others. Whilst some concerns had been raised in previous years within China, and there was a trickle of hearsay reports of deficiencies in construction, these started to be more widely reported during the early part of 2011. Many were associated with the corruption charges that the then Minister of railways, Liu Zhijun, was learnt to be involved in, later. Known as ‘Leap Liu’ for his keenness to develop China’s railways in a ‘leapfrog’ fashion, he had described China’s High Speed Rail programme as a programme that comprised the “greatest comprehensive technology, best integrative ability, highest operational distance, fastest operational speed, and largest scale of construction” in the world.
But the Lunar New Year, a major festive season, proved that it wasn’t so as the High Speed Rail could not accommodate the migrant workers who were returning home. So that raised questions on the capacity issue of the system. Two major railway accidents in 2008 and 2009 that led to 72 and three deaths, and 416 and 63 injuries respectively, too adversely impacted the fate of the project. Zhijun was said to have favoured a few companies (including Boyou Investment Management Group Ltd) that compromised the safety of the commuters of the high speed rail project. The safety issue, majorly probed, led to some startling facts. One that the quality of the construction materials used – including the quality of fly ash that is used to strengthen cement – was sub standard. It was found that more abundant, lower grade fly ash was used in lieu of the harder to source, high quality fly ash required to strengthen cement.
Workmanship: Quality of construction workmanship in some places also was not up to the standard. The design and construction standards of high speed rail are notably higher than for ordinary rail. But for both – initial construction and for remedial repairs – that hadn’t happened.
Slowing down of construction
In April this year, the project was slowed down by the new Minister of Railways, Sheng Guangzu, as its safety aspect raised serious concerns. While the total value of railway contracts was cut by 90%, the future rail building budget for 2011 was cut down by RMB100bn to RMB600bn. After the Wenzhou bullet train accident, the Ministry of Railways came in for criticism – both from national international media – over its handling of the incident, the opacity of its investigation and also the pace at which high speed rail was rolled-out. Its decision to remove carriages from the crash site before a full forensic investigation had been carried out at the scene, have been seriously questioned. China Railway Signal & Communication (CSRC), which was credited with the development of the signal technology for High Speed Rail, also faced a lot of flak.
The axle effect: Since the accident, further safety checks identified more potential issues. In August, first 54 trains were withdrawn from the Beijing-Shanghai line, and 10 days later, another 18 recalls were announced. Among various claims and counterclaims, issues with the quality of axles have been mooted as a possible reason. In addition, the maximum speed of 350kph has been reduced to 300kph for safety reasons. However, the impact of this restricted speed limit on performance is perhaps limited: Wang Menshu, a Fellow of the Chinese Academy of Engineering pointed out that 350kph was rarely if ever attained — the Beijing-Tianjin and Beijing-Shanghai lines previously operated at 270-310kph.
Future Prospects
It would appear that management procedures and software systems (human and computer conjointly) were not prioritised in the previous inspections, which concentrated upon track, rolling stock and contracts. Perhaps an excessive focus on the speedy roll-out of hardware led to software issues being under-prioritised. Possibly, perceptible corruption and hardware safety issues monopolised the immediate focus of the review of the Ministry of Railways.
Sheng Guangzu’s mission to comprehensively reform China’s railways is now more important than ever. Given the progress China has made to date, both in rail and other areas, it would be foolish to suggest that China won’t be competing with western firms in a few years’ time.
(Richard Di Bona is a Hong Kong-based transport consultant with 19 years’ post-MSc experience gained in projects in over 25 countries. He has undertaken projects across 20 Municipalities, Provinces and Regions of China since 1995).