Two days into my journey in Xiamen, I got an opportunity to go out and experience the city in its chilly 15°C nights. Well, the night was freezing cold for a Singaporean like myself who had just flown in to southeastern China for barely a few days (I later got used to it, and now the issue is adapting back to Singapore’s hot, humid tropical weather 😂), so bus spotting took a back seat. In the darkness of dusk, I lacked proper photography equipment that could adapt to the conditions anyway, so what for. Where does a transit enthusiast go to avoid the chilling winds on the street?
Why of course, underground, where the ground traps heat better and the air-conditioned passages come equipped with climate control to keep temperature at a warm, hospitable 22°C throughout the day, any time of the year. Deep in the night, it would have been futile to attempt bus photography anyway, without a proper camera capable of discerning the silhouettes of buses beyond just a blur.
Beneath Xiamen Island lies three massive underground tubes accompanied by numerous underground complexes spaced about 1km apart, serving the express role of carrying the city’s 5 million people around one of China’s major special economic zones. Two of those tubes extend across the bay to continental China, where newer industrial facilities of the city, as well as the city’s main high-speed rail station are located.
Thus completing the Xiamen Metro network, consisting of three lines intersecting each other at a triangle on Xiamen Island. Of course, as is the case with all Chinese metros, more is to come in the near future, but for now it’s a pretty decent system of three lines that link up to almost all of the city’s districts, and still maintain some form of interconnectivity.
And so began my journey through Chinese rapid transit systems during my 22-day visit there, out of sheer accident perhaps.
Unlike in Singapore, and like most of the rest of the world, two means of payment are accepted for ticketing: cash and cashless. (Update 03/2024: For now, we are still following the global consensus, with the SimplyGo fiasco having blown over… for now) Single-ride tickets have been retained, and the ticketing machines spit out a coin-like NFC token as a “ticket”, rather than the paper RFID cards that we used to offer. A convenient means of selling single rides that reduces wastage from having to continually replenish the stock of single-use ticket cards.
This handy little token was offered to the passenger upon purchase, used for tapping into the system, then slotted back into the gantries upon exiting the train system, to be reused for the next passenger purchasing a single-use ride.
Ticketing matters aside, once that was out of the way, we cleared ubiquitously Chinese security checks in a breeze and found our way into the station. To be fair, we visited relatively late at night, about 9pm or later, when the evening peak crowd had thoroughly cleared out and the third peak yet to end work.
On first impression one finds little difference between the Xiamen Metro and Singapore MRT. It’s the bog-same experience, with island platforms, platform screen doors, six-car trains with eight doors each and perhaps similarities may even be found as far as the station names themselves! (Choa Chu Kang is derived from the Hokkien reading of Caicuo, a town in Xiamen and the current eastern terminus of Line 3).
Albeit, a running issue with Chinese metro systems outside the biggest cities would be their lack of emphasis on operating trains as frequently as ours. Despite having some awareness that I should expect to wait longer, it still came as a mild cultural shock to see then nonchalently run 7-minute frequencies, even though this was standard practice in cities with around 5 million inhabitants, such as Xiamen and Kunming.
The Xiamen Metro features trains that make extensive usage of light in creating their sleek, postmodern aura. As a particular enjoyer of lighted strips that accent the contours in exterior designs of vehicles, noting the halo lamp featured on the ends of the trains and the accented doormat on the Line 1 trains was a delight. A feature I wished newer rolling stock here could adopt, purely out of aesthetic taste. :p
Albeit, formatting infographics for elegance isn’t exactly a Chinese strength — one could well argue that their arrival displays are designed in a far more lackluster manner than the RATIS screens on our MRT system. And definitely no one’s gonna be able to see the train loading bar at the very top if they’re located at the end of the platform, with how small a corner it occupies on screen! Nonetheless, it very aptly balances out the need to cycle between promotional advertisements that generate revenue and the information for which these screens exist — train arrival and loading indication. I’ll illustrate this further with an exemplar from Shenzhen later.
On Chinese metro trains built from the mid-2010s onwards, it’s a staple to see their equivalent of our Car Door Display (CDD) featured on almost all trains, regardless of city or line.
Which arguably present information that passengers value in a much more organised, concise and helpful manner than even the newest DRMD iterations built into the newer R151 and refurbished C751A trains here. For one, it is clear where key platform access amenities (ie lifts and escalators) are located relative to the position of each train car. Sure, our STARiS v2.0 does this too, for all its faults (but not the LTA standard DRMD that came later?). However, an additional feature here is the real kicker: above the diagram showing escalator placements is icons (the orange caplets on the screen) denoting the general direction of each station exit relative to the platform. If you’re really rushing to get somewhere, or change trains ahead of the crowd, this helps immensely in positioning yourself to alight from the door nearest your intended direction.
In case it wasn’t noticed, the Xiamen Metro runs 6-car trains, and as added context, across all three operational lines too. With a similar population size to Singapore, a lower rail network density and lower operating frequency, the least needed to ensure that things don’t fall apart is the capacity guarantee — when all else fails, a train sufficiently big is capable of brute forcing your way through most problems (exceptions exist, but not for the scale of mid-sized cities like Xiamen). Happily enough, the Chinese rail planning culture frowns greatly upon metro train configurations shorter than 6 cars, which gives a basic capacity guarantee for upcoming lines. That alone means that in the near future when said lines open to the public, we (Singapore) would fall behind yet another city in terms of potential metro network capacity. I can’t help but think that we messed up on this front too many times to save ourselves — the lesson of the CCL was not heeded for the DTL and TEL, and by the time we had the opportunity to apply said lesson, we had reached the point where not much else can be added to our rail network, save perhaps the “9th MRT line” in LTMP 2040. Line capacity is something intrinsically built into the infrastructure, meaning there really is no second chance if lines are underbuilt, and the Chinese wisdom in most cases (counter-cases demonstrating equal amounts of planning ineptitude to us exist too, for instance Shanghai Line 6) has always been to err on the side of abundance, in anticipation of future demand. Is it too late for us to realise this? Personally, I say yes.
Another particularly helpful feature (for a time-tight transit tourist that I was, that night) on the CDD for Xiamen Metro trains was the inclusion of travel time to all upcoming stations along the line. I’m not the most sure whether this is based off estimated or scheduled arrival times, but this is definitely a lifesaver when every minute counts in your rush to get there before you get booked for being late. For me, this feature was extremely helpful in determining how far I could ride before I had to turn back and return to my origin point before the stipulated curfew time.
By chance after getting off the train I had a chance to take a look at the official Xiamen metro map, pasted prominently on the walls of the paid and unpaid areas of stations around the system.
There was one detail that immediately caught my eye upon a cursory inspection. Alongside the standard display of the three metro lines currently operating as part of the Xiamen Metro, one line on the map stood out in particular, and no it’s not any of the under-construction lines.
You see, the Xiamen Metro system is conveniently referred to by its shorthand “AMTR” (Amoy Transit Rail), accompanied by the branding logo that resembles the old Gmail icon. However, it’s lazy equivocation — the AMTR system comprises not just the rail-based Xiamen Metro but also the Xiamen BRT system which predates it and continues to be the key north-south transit corridor in eastern Xiamen Island.
Here, what the AMTR network map and branding show is not solely the rail network but instead all forms of right-of-way separated rapid transit. What I applaud here is the active effort to include all forms of rapid transit under a common branding, presenting all fast public transport options on the same map, regardless of mode. In that respect, Xiamen comes out ahead of most cities in mapping by service, including many of its mainland Chinese counterparts.
Similar cities that fall in this category would include Vancouver, Los Angeles and (help) Kuala Lumpur, all of which feature BRT infrastructure on rapid transit maps.
Although there exists one critical difference between the Xiamen network and these: the bus/BRT service is indicated on maps in the latter largely due to inadequacies in the rail network that must be filled, whether in the short or medium term, by road-based rapid transit schemes as part of the larger rapid transit system, and less so out of a genuine desire to be inclusive of BRT as part of the full suite of rapid transit services on the map and branding. Rapid transit maps elsewhere in China often omit the BRT services, even if they are highly extensive and cover an equally significant portion of the city, as is unfortunately the case in more advanced BRT systems like Zhengzhou and Beijing. A good note for us to take down, when we do start investing heavily in similar RBRT systems to complement our ongoing strategy of urban decentralisation.
Another effect that becomes obvious only when you look at the BRT and metro systems together in Xiamen is their complementary role in forming the robust rapid transit grid network, where each individual mode would have otherwise failed to accomplish on its own. Separately, the existing Metro network is a radial system arranged in a Russian triangle where they meet (I’ll cover this in an upcoming post, but basically this refers to the practice of three radial lines with mutually staggered intersection points to form some semblance of interconnectivity downtown, rather than on a single center, that first originated in metro systems of the former USSR), while the BRT system is a largely linear system focused along one major corridor linking the main intercity train and bus stations in the city. Both network structures are not ideal for a city where demand is multidirectional due to the decentralised nature of key trip generators — there’s a disproportionately high number of higher education institutes in Xiamen due to influences from Tan Kah Kee, a native of the city. However, the combination of the BRT and metro under the unified AMTR network enables the formation of a basic interconnective grid comprising north-south and east-west elements on Xiamen Island. In time, as the newer metro lines on the mainland side open, new east-west elements will also be introduced to bridge the north-south lines formed by Line 1 and the northern parts of the BRT system. This complementary nature of the BRT and metro in Xiamen is part of a bigger phenomenon in general — the ability for a strong, robust RBRT (or heck, basic bus) system to correct a largely radial network structure towards a more connective one. It’s what I’ve always been saying ever since 2020, though of course, it’s fallen on deaf ears as we continue to do the opposite.
I’m surprised…
As the night fell deeper upon Xiamen one particular operational detail dawned upon me, not least because I had a curfew to stick to, for getting back to my hotel which was a fair distance away from the nearest metro station. The non-ideal, but bearable five-minute intervals at 9pm quickly gave way to intervals as high as eight minutes less than an hour later. It’s not a problem if you have the entire night to stay outside, but when your curfew is at 10.30pm and your clueless groupmates less adept at navigating the Chinese streetscape miss the train…
In any case, it’s surprising how little thought Xiamen in particular puts towards service for the third peak, considering how the third peak there is expected to be a lot steeper, with a higher proportion of the city’s economy geared towards sectors such as education and tourism, industries which typically see work hours end much later than those of the typical white-collar 9-to-5 job. And the crowds onboard after 10pm are no joke too — anecdotally, said groupmates above missed the train in part because the train was too full for them to get on together.
Here’s an interesting sticker I found on the platform screen doors while waiting for the train:
Another surprise, though this was a very welcome initiative on the part of AMTR: different cars on the same train have their air-conditioning adjusted to different temperatures. Later research showed that this initiative is also in place in other Chinese cities, such as the Beijing Subway, as well as some Japanese rail systems. While its implementation in China occurred largely due out of reasons for personalising cabin temperature for different commuter tastes or saving the environment, there is great potential in applying this to Singapore, for very practical reasons of staggering crush loading on trains during peak periods.
Recall my fellow co-author’s words in a post on encouraging bus passengers to move in.
To quote a Microeconomics class on how people only care about their self-interests:
- Humans are rational beings…which…
- Humans would always seek the best alternative in a set of possible choices i.e. individuals always choose the option that maximizes his/her rewards in terms of profits, outcomes, benefits etc. (In the Singapore public transport context, it is to have the most comfortable ride, with little/no concern over other commuters’ comfort.)
You don’t exactly need me to tell you at our core, we are quite the self-centered kind, with numerous internet fourms and articles of selfish Singaporeans bringing the maximizes his/her rewards to a wholly new level. This also means another thing, no amount of campaigning will work, if it “degrades” the QOL of oneself.
@lemonnarc 2022
In a similar vein, a cheaper and less intrusive way to encourage staggering of demand across the train can be implemented without having to entirely change station structures to move escalators around. A simple manipulation of air-con intensity across different cars on the same train will do the trick equally effectively.
Bear in mind that Singapore is a bloody hot place (so much so cycling as anything other than last-mile connective transport is impractical, and it would be wiser to encourage PMD use for mid-range travel), so whatever emphasis that heat-hating mainland Chinese place upon it, the average Singaporean would place multiple times that instead! Existing campaigns to encourage Singapore commuters to move to the ends of the train instead of crowding at the 2nd and 5th cars by placing notices on platform screen doors and deploying platform staff to guide crowds has not really been very effective. Instead, employing this East Asian strategy of offering different air-con intensity across different cars can much more effectively encourage commuters here to change their commuting habits and spread train loading more evenly across the train. Air-con in the 2nd and 5th cars of our six-car trains can be made weaker (or, if you prefer to see it the other way, making the air-con in the end cars stronger and colder) to encourage commuters to shift away from this crowding hotspot and fill up other parts of the train further away from the escalators so more passengers can board during rush hour.
In terms of transfers, they’re pretty decent — the island platforms are stacked directly on top of each other in a perpendicular fashion. Of typical Chinese fashion, a stairway links the platforms of both lines together. Though it’s less convenient for the mobility-impaired — they have to take a lift up to the concourse, and then back down to the other platform. It’s still miles ahead of some of the most nonsensical transfers that we on the red dot have managed to cook up though, for what it’s worth.
I see two consecutive interchange stations planned between line 2 and the upcoming line 6, which may possibly hint at a paired stacked-island cross platform transfer. Looking forward, and hope they don’t disappoint! Well, the Promenade situation is a pretty low bar to cross admittedly, and the Chinese have already surpassed it with bigger trains built by default.
Overall, the AMTR system is neither the best, nor the worst, with a few bright spots worth a serious look at for us to learn from. Their broad vision of a rapid transit system that is not confined to just rail opens up more opportunities for a more abundant network at a lower cost, with similar outcomes. Wayfinding and information display is done much better than anything imaginable in Singapore. I forgot to add earlier, but each (rail) line in the AMTR system, on top of having a unique number and colour, also has its own unique icon expressing the line’s identity. While done perhaps for purposes of enhancing the system’s character, it’s also a highly futureproof navigational guide for colour-blind people and those with dementia. That’s on top of the intuitive, simple and informative displays both on the train and in the platform, that show passengers the information they truly want, rather than dedicate unnecessary space toward ads that are frankly unpersuasive in this day and age. Of course, there’s a lot to work on, frequency first of all, but in the greater scheme of things, unless you travel really late at night regularly, the waits are pretty bearable. Peak hour frequencies on the Xiamen Metro are 3.5 minutes to 4.5 minutes, which… is better than a certain line we have here (up until its fourth stage opens later this year). Put in context, this is pretty impressive itself already, if we consider that Xiamen is not the provincial capital, where public transport is expected to conduct itself much more stringently.
On a more personal note, I find it a big pity that I was unable to visit the very unique Xiamen BRT system, due to itinerary reasons… It would have made whole the visit to examine the AMTR system. The electric bendy buses featured are also really cool too, and I would have loved to ride them…
As a city, Xiamen is a pretty chill place, in large part because the pace of life is just much slower there, compared to Tier 1 Chinese cities and Singapore. In terms of urban planning, there’s a lot more space in the city allocated for zoning out and being with yourself, although how steep living expenses can get are unclear. A joke told by my tour guide during my time there — “only two things haven’t gone up in Xiamen over the past 20 years — wages and bus fares.” The hallmark of an extremely affordable (bus) public transport system, but not necessarily in the other necessities of daily life. Though if you want to talk about quality of life, you’d pick Xiamen any day over neighbouring Kinmen…
Obligatory recommendation here for anyone intending to visit Xiamen: whatever you do, please try to ride Line 1 across the Xiamen causeway at least once. The views are amazingly picturesque regardless of time of day, and recently it has gained incredible popularity on social media for its romantic similarity to the Ocean Railway from Spirited Away. The five-minute ride between Jimei Xuecun and Gaoqi stations will be an unforgettable experience that you will remember and unfairly compare rail transit from your city to from then on. 😀
About half a week later after my spin through urban and rural Fujian province I returned to Guangdong, this time to Shenzhen. Once again I had the good fortune to be allowed the chance to try out Shenzhen’s metro system, just like in Xiamen. Though a much shorter encounter with the Shenzhen Metro (two one-station rides), the experience was equally packed with comment-worthy moments, and just like with the Xiamen Metro, some pleasant surprises to be had.
Perhaps due to the much denser urban form in Shenzhen, where complex underground structures became an inevitability, the underground mall concept lived up to its full potential and was exploited fully by SZMC (Shenzhen Metro Corp., the system’s primary developer and operator). At a metro station near the Shenzhen Bay Park, the station exit leads down into a long underground passageway lined with shops on both sides before finally emerging into the station concourse proper.
You’d be forgiven for second guessing the legitimacy of the station exit. It’s the more successful version of the “JR retail shops” that LTA is proposing for TEL stations, and on par with the SMRT Xchanges introduced at NSEWL and CCL stations the decade prior. Minus of course, the profiteering that SMRT committed that resulted in the 2011 double trouble, which we are still reeling from even today. Though it’s not very conducive at all for access penalty — Shenzhen Metro stations, especially those located in the downtown Futian district across the river from Hong Kong, have some impressively insane long walkways that would make our TEL underground exit linkways pale in comparison.
Combine this with the lack of legibility of station exits in the dense concrete jungle urban landscape that spans the vast majority of Shenzhen, and it makes wayfinding a lot harder. I’ve seen some quarters of the internet advocate for smaller station exits to fit better in tight urban streetscapes, and while I don’t have much against that in particular I caution against small exits that lack legibility, because in a dense urban environment where the buildings and skyscrapers around it are also made of glass and steel in a likely similar modernist style the tiny station exit melts away into the landscape. It doesn’t help that many exits for some stations link up to shopping malls underground… a passer-by on the street would be completely unaware of the metro station’s presence underneath him unless the mall and metro system put in the effort to add additional signage at street level to indicate the underground station exit. Perhaps it’s just a Shenzhen issue as a result of the city’s breakneck development over the past 30 years, but still given the care other Chinese cities put in towards thoughtful signposting, I find no excuse that the second most important city in Guangdong province (the richest in the whole of mainland China) skimp on this important secondary feature in their rail transit system.
Once you get on to the platform things becomes a lot friendlier.
Here’s a standard RATIS (or their equivalent, not sure what they call it) screen typically found on platforms of metro systems in China:
Yeah, 6-minute off peak frequencies are pretty hot trash, on a similar level to the same certain line we have here in Singapore… That aside, with only differences in layout, the same set of information can be found across all such screens. They tell you the date and time, and the arrival timings of the next two trains inbound, with their corresponding destination too. Additionally, car loading indicators are a ubiquitous sight across all Chinese metro systems, and more importantly they don’t stop working half the time unlike the ones employed on the DTL and TEL. Sure, there’s some useless corporate communications video being played endlessly on loop on those screens as well, as well as advertising that’s more annoying than persuasive on them, just like on RATIS screens in Singapore. But the key difference here is that unlike our RATIS, advertising and other filler media don’t occupy the entire screen in China, and the information that truly matters when waiting for the train stays on the screen permanently throughout. Because if the screen can’t show passengers what they are looking for, then they defeat their own purpose for existing.
A rare easter egg that not many systems, not even within China have. I forsee that its value will be most obvious to train enthusiasts who are out finding their favourite trains running on the line:
Located at the “head” of the train in the loading indicator, a small number underneath the cab window indicates the serial number of the approaching train. In this case, the next train arriving in 2 minutes is set 909.
Lo and behold:
And an implementation of the CDD more akin to our former approach of showing the next few stations. The key difference here that makes the Shenzhen Line 9 approach better than our widely negatively-perceived STARiS 2.0 is that besides indicating the next few stops as we used to do, they also included a static route map of the entire line. Having the entire line displayed, whether on the CDD screen itself or by any other means, is very critical because passengers, when on the train itself, demand to see not just their position relative to the whole line, but also possible connections from their current journey on a particular line. Unless you’re running something like the Waterloo and City Line, or the Changi Airport shuttle service, this information that is useful as the first form of journey planning cannot be effectively conveyed in a setup that displays only the next few stations.
I’m not the most clear why Shenzhen chooses to stick to the local view on their in-train CDDs rather than the linewide view that Xiamen adopts, alongside our new standardised format. Second-hand Japanese influences?
On a side note, the trains there are HUGE, with car sizes rivaling that of the Hong Kong MTR next door. Line 9, which I rode while there, featured six-car trains with ten doors per car. In Chinese terms, the line adopts a 6A configuration (6-car Type A train). By contrast, the capacity of Xiamen’s Line 1 is 6B. I didn’t see the train being filled up that much even during a ride that supposedly was during the peak periods… Maybe few Shenzheners have business going near the Shenzhen Bay on their way home in the evening, I don’t know. But Xiasha, where I boarded the train, was midway along Line 9, so there has got to be something earlier that drives the demand that warrants 6A trains instead of the default 6B. Shenzhen’s metro network forms a grid until about 30km out, instead of the usually radial networks seen in rapid transit systems elsewhere. Like I’ve always mentioned, the side effect of this is the far more even distribution of travel demand across the entire network, rather than an overloading of the focal nodes in radial and hub-and-spoke systems. On top of that, otherwise unidirectional peak demand on individual lines is also distributed in two or more directions as a result of actively building up a connective grid rather than radial. Although… Line 9 short-turns trains around at Shenzhen Bay Park, for unknown reasons until I figure out how demand flow is like there.
Shhhh…
Since this has become a topic of some contention as a result of subpar performance of (ahem) a particular rail line in Singapore, it’s worth taking note how the experience is like on these Chinese metro systems I’ve experienced, especially since a lot of the blame from the TEL’s noise problems is being directed towards the trains being “Chinese made”. The irrational Sinophobia that I feel Singaporeans as a whole need to work on and overcome aside, my experiences in Xiamen and Shenzhen discredit the direct link between Chinese construction and subpar ride quality. Though much of my ride on the Xiamen Metro was underground (save the hype-worthy sea-crossing segment mentioned above), I didn’t really feel like the train was particularly loud while running in the tunnels.
Perhaps the only point during my metro experience in China where I felt something that closely resembled the TEL’s roaring howl in the tunnels was in Shenzhen, where the longer station spacing enabled the trains to make more noise while rounding bends at higher speeds. Then again, this is the exact same effect that can be felt on parts of our Circle Line and even the Tuas West Extension when trains round the tighter curves at full speed. When the train was travelling straight, noise was at levels more akin to that of our NSEWL trains underground. My take on the TEL’s problems haven’t been the most popular for a while, but remains the most intuitive and logical — it’s simply a matter of engineering and the way the tracks were designed, as well as the calibration of operating speeds on different bends. Or, the systemic oversight in these aspects of design, testing and commissioning that led to a deterioration in ride quality for newer lines opened in more recent years.
Special cars
Because of neighbourly influence™, Shenzhen implements it’s own version of first-class cars on selected Metro lines that play a more “rapid-stop” role. Just like the Hong Kong version, one car is equipped with additional fare validators and additional seats, arranged to face either end, where intending passengers must pay an additional fare to ride in them. Supposedly, that would guarantee a seat when other cars in the train are crush-loaded with passengers.
During my time in Shenzhen I had the chance to interact with local students, some of whom were suspiciously enthusiastic in talking about matters of urban transport. (Of course, they could well just be disgruntled public transport users who take interest in it because they’re fed up and want to know how it can be better, just like me a long time ago before I started STC) According to them, the steep fare hike to get into the business class car does squat to deter passengers — whereas the Hong Kong F-cars on the East Rail Line double the fare paid, the business class cars in Shenzhen triple the fare instead. While it’s thought this would deter passengers for a city where cost of living is considerably higher than the rest of China, the business class cars are as crowded as the others during rush hour — so one pays the premium for negligible improvements in comfort. It should also be noted that this triple premium applies at a flat fare — for students such as those I spoke to who are usually charged half fares for concessionary travel on the Shenzhen metro, they have to pay six times their fare to get into these business class cars, on par with their non-concessionary, adult counterparts. Perhaps that explains why they are so salty about it — the Singapore equivalent would be for a student to pay S$7 ($2.37, the maximum adult fare, times three) and still have to stand on the MRT during peak hours. Though in such a case, I think the Singaporean would feel far more salty than his Shenzhen counterpart, for even the highest Shenzhen Metro business class fares cap out at the equivalent of SGD4.50 (as of March 2024).
On an unrelated note, my acquaintances there have also mentioned Shenzhen’s attempts to introduce women-only carriages, all of which ended in immense social media uproar that eventually resulted in the initiative being scrapped. It’s surprisingly not because of the “encourage, not enforce” approach that Shenzhen (and neighbouring Guangzhou) have taken on this — the very idea of women-only carriages itself has been largely unpopular among Chinese social media users, who are aware of the Pandora’s Box that will be opened as the argument (originally predicated on “priority for the needy) slippery-slopes into hair-splitting and identity politics over who’s more in need than the other, which destroys the originally good intention of encouraging considerate commuting.
Other than that however, basic fares for travelling in Chinese metro systems are dirt cheap: the base fare is 2 yuan and slowly climbs to about 15 yuan (it differs by city) — for the two cities I’ve visited, fares max out at 13 yuan for Xiamen and 16 yuan for Shenzhen (basic). For S$2.97, you can travel the equivalent from Changi Airport to Senai Airport in Johor Bahru via the CBD. That’s how far your money can get you on a Chinese metro system, and is another great testament to the affordability of public transport fares there. In contrast… it would be a fever dream to imagine being able to travel on the MRT for less than 40 cents (that’s CNY2 for you, at March 2024 rates), in a time when the PTC is pressured to increase fares every year, and still have the cheek to invite “experts” to gaslight us to accept even steeper fare increases.
Because fundamentally the governing philosophy behind Chinese and Singaporean public transport is different — Singapore has been increasingly concerning itself unnecessarily with matters of balancing book ledgers when operating public transport, so much so it has gotten in the way of frequent, reliable and convenient service! It bears repeating that in China, the official mantra of all bodies linked to the government, from the top Communist Party leadership to the local transit agency, is the iconic Mao-era mass line: 为人民服务！ (Serve the People) The government is compelled by the socialist constitution to be on the side of the people, rather than private capital and interest groups, and official entities that violate the mass line are flogged relentlessly by the people on social media. They almost never end well.
A note on security
For some odd reason, and perhaps also because the Americans are starting to do it too, people love to lambast the security checks in Chinese metro systems. Whimsical political arguments about “police-state” and whatnot aside, the practical argument of these checks wasting time is rather unfounded, or at least outside the real Tier 1 cities which face crush-loading demand. During the evening peak ride back to Shenzhen Bay Park I faced the archetypal long line that stretched from the metal detector beside the faregates all the way to the escalator landing at the nearest station exit. (Bear in mind how long underground linkways in Shenzhen can get, as I said earlier) Nonetheless, against my worst fears (again, I was being pressed to get back in time at the end, oops 💀), the entire line managed to clear out within 5 minutes. Impressive efficiency. I once asked aloud why Chinese metro systems don’t display upcoming train arrival times at station exits like we do in Singapore, and the security checks were cited as the main reason — “it wouldn’t matter by the time you were able to tap in at the faregates”. With delays less significant than expected as a result of security queues, I wager that there is still value in installing some form of display at station entrances indicating upcoming train timings. Kudos to the security staff nationwide for processing security checks so swiftly and efficiently throughout the day though, for this is a feat I doubt any other country can pull off. Well, it’s required in China out of necessity, because if they don’t, the alternative is metro commuters switching to driving as much as possible and making the country’s infamous congestion much worse than it already is.
What is annoying about these security checks rather is their demand on tourists who carry quite a lot of bags on them when they go out sightseeing — with a backpack and a sling bag on me my clumsy ass probably held up the line a few times while I tried to untangle the straps and throw them into the X-ray scanner… Protip for urban exploration in China — travel as light as possible, for your benefit and others, especially if you intend to take the metro. It will save you the hassle of taking everything off and putting them back on again during the security check, as well as the impatient glares of the security staff and commuters behind you.
这里不run许拍照
What’s the biggest pet peeve of transport enthusiasts in China, especially train enthusiasts (for both subways and mainline railways)?
Prohibitions and regulations against photography in the system, more aptly summed up in the tongue-in-cheek, dialect-laced phrase 这里不run许拍照, which itself has become a sort of national meme in China. It’s particularly annoying for those interested in capturing and documenting the various rail-based systems across the country, and this overly paranoid approach towards handling in-system photography is arguably the only thing about transport in China that is decidedly backwards and archaic in comparison to other countries. It’s honestly depressing how of all the things that one can learn from the Chinese system, our LTA chose this particular aspect to double down upon, and worse still infuse their signature gaslighting into the mix to further antagonise the one group of people that could possibly save their horrible reputation — public transport enthusiasts who actually bother to care about public transport in Singapore.
For what it’s worth, their recent attempt to feign openness and welcome towards public transport photography has NOT been taken well by the public transport community at all, with their social media getting torn up by angry enthusiasts, frustrated by the Singapore equivalent of 不run许拍照 and the sheer display of double standards on the part of LTA’s corporate communications.
Nonetheless I still tried my luck, and turns out that this absurd rule isn’t very uniformly enforced nationwide, thankfully. I managed to get pictures of the Xiamen Metro unmolested, with friendly and cooperative station staff who were more understanding. Well, at least they’re aware of Line 1’s status as a hot tourist attraction, or else things could play out very ugly given the power of Chinese social media. On the other hand however, I got stopped while filming on the Shenzhen Metro by a security staff, and he was really anal about it, akin to the infamous Huangcun station staff who gave rise to the entire meme in the first place.
Thankfully he left without so much any attempt to try causing more trouble, for I could see many ways it would have escalated. Please, what’s the hate against enthusiasts? Do the authorities in China and Singapore unironically believe 快门一按 行车中断 造成事故 移交法办 is an accurate depiction of reality?? (Translation: Pressing the shutter, train service disrupted, major incident caused, handed to the police. We train enthusiasts invented that to satirise PRC laws against photography of railways, lmao)
It’s a great pity that some of the greatest and most underrated metro systems in the world face hurdles in being documented for people, especially those outside China and the Chinese-speaking world, to see and marvel at.
True to the title of this post, Chinese metro systems are giant hearts of iron (and concrete) — absolutely crucial to the survival and prosperity of the cities they serve, while being incredibly efficient and people-centered (nb. Jarrett Walker post on ‘efficiency’) at the same time. Perhaps the beauty of the Chinese metro experience is that they demonstrate how one can achieve the same great outcomes in moving millions of people without having to resort to extremes. No monstrous 10-car abominations such as those seen in Japan, and few lines really push the extreme bottom limits of their signalling systems across the whole country. More importantly, the experiences of mid-sized cities such as Xiamen are instructive in helping to develop rapid transit systems that are appropriate for many cities of such sizes (~3 to 8 million population) who are currently in their process of building up advanced public transport to meet future demand.
More instructively, most rapid transit in China (barring special cases such as Xi’an and Chongqing) are built in a highly cost-effective and timely manner, which is very sadly slandered as “cost-cutting” and “exploiting workers” to discredit Chinese transit achievements. If more learned from them we could have far more abundant rapid transit not just in Singapore, but also elsewhere, all around the world. Though… it’s a pretty systemic thing that stretches all the way back to the nation’s core principles. Doesn’t stop others from learning anyway.
As a comparative example, our southern neighbour Indonesia is attempting to build multiple light rail systems (one of which is unfortunately an APM instead) for similarly-populated, booming but congested cities. With good learning from the Chinese experience and steering clear from the holes they fell into at great cost, Indonesia could well support 10 cities with full-fledged, extensive metro systems, and even more, given their great population.
Built for the people, rather than for profit. Designed for commuter convenience, rather than technical sloppiness*. Operated for the people, rather than for profit*. And unfortunately, enforced out of paranoia rather than with reason. An apt summary of my own Chinese rapid transit experience, and may the hearts of iron beat on and on for decades to come.
*With exceptions, mostly in Shanghai
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SG Transport Critic 
3 thoughts on “Hearts of iron”