It took Shenzhen 20 years to have a subway. And 20 others have the best metro in the world

The first time I traveled to Shenzhen, what was repeated to me most when I looked at its impressive skyscrapers was that until recently it was a small fishing village. And although it is true that this fact is a bit exaggerated and simplified because well, 330,000 inhabitants is not exactly a village and there was more activity than fishing, the reality is that its growth and transformation into the most technological city in the world it has been brilliant: today they live there more than 17 million people and has seen the birth of colossi such as Huawei, Tencent, DJI or BYD. And of course, the most technological city in the world has one meter at its height, which of course has grown at breakneck speed. Because the history of the transportation network goes hand in hand with the city. But what makes the shenzhen subway It is not so much its size or how quickly it has expanded, but the combination of the previous two with a third variable that rarely appears in the equation: design ambition. While in the West, with rare exceptions, we opt for functional projects that are contained in price and budget, Shenzhen presents entire lines in a few years with stations that seem taken from the cinema. From science fiction cinema. Shenzhen subway today. Shenzhen subway has 635 kilometers long, 441 stations and 17 operating lines, leading the country in network density (0.30 km/km²) and intensity of use (15,000 trips/km/day). And in this tangle, semi-automatic lines coexist with other fully automated and driverless lines. like Line 20 or very fast as Line 11which reaches 120 km/h. As a curiosity, the Shenzhen metro network It is operated by two different companies: Shenzhen Metro Group manages the majority of lines and MTR Corporation of Hong Kong operates Line 4 and the recent Line 13. This is something unusual that adds difficulty to the matter in terms of interoperability. Why is it important. The Shenzhen metro may be unique in its kind, but it is the best argument to demonstrate that speed of execution and quality of design are not incompatible. The third variable in the equation is cost and surprisingly, comparatively it is cheaper: China build for around $250 million per kilometer in purchasing power parity terms, between two and eight times less than Western equivalents like Paris or New York. On the other hand, the Shenzhen metro acts as an urban catalyst: the stations were planned following the TOD modelthat is, promoting urban development around transport stations. That is to say, they serve the city but also make the city. On a global scale, this network is a methodological reference: it is no longer just a matter of engineering, but also about experience, design and territorial strategy. The Eye of Shenzhen, the centerpiece of Gangxia North Station, one of its most iconic elements. Unsplash Context. First of all, a clarification: that fishing village reference usually emphasizes about 30,000 inhabitants in the late 70s, but that figure corresponds to Bao’an County and not the 30,000 of Shenzhen Town, which constituted the original urban core (today Luohu district). The growth is in any case exponential and shows a dispersed demographic base that required territorial reorganization and explains the aggressive growth of the metro network. But if we have mentioned that figure of 330,000 inhabitants that explains the China Global Television Network is because it was that entire area that was designated as Special Economic Zonea plan that provides advantageous conditions to promote economic development (usually economic laws for a free market economy). In short, the laboratory of Chinese capitalism. Wow it worked. Metro planning began in the 1980s, construction in 1998, and the first line opened in December 2004. The beginnings were not quick or easy. The subsoil where the Shenzhen metro is integrated did not help at all: weathered granite, high water table and proximity to the Pearl River Delta, which forced the intensive use of specialized tunnel boring machines, jet grouting and even freeze the ground. Neither is the climate: 35 °C with 90% humidity in summer and recurring typhoons that require oversized drainage systems and watertight gates. The idea of ​​the subway was born before the megacity it is today: in 1983, Mayor Liang Xiang visited Singapore and On his return he made it clear: around Shennan Avenue I would leave a green belt of 30 meters on each side and reserve 16 meters in the center to build it. In 1988 there was a formal light rail proposal. Shenzhen Metro Group was established in July 1998 and construction began that same year. Six years later, on December 28, 2004, he opened the Line 1 with 17.4 kilometers and 15 stations. It was a modest system: four-car trains, 15-minute frequencies and limited coverage to the central corridor on two lines. How have they done it. Building an average of 30 kilometers a year is simply an unthinkable pace in Europe. The secret is in a large scale prefabrication which allows them to be made in the factory and assembled on site like Lego XXL and meticulous planning from design to maintenance. The avant-garde design of the stations is not accidental but has every intention: for Shenzhen, its subway is its showcase of the identity it wants to project to the world. An example: the Shenzhen eyea spectacular skylight following the Fermat Spiral or the ceiling that simulates an origami of Universiade or maritime integration of the station Sea World between Lines 2 and 12. The business model is Rail + Property imported from Hong Kong and is equally interesting because it has allowed it to grow without depending on waiting for state/municipal budgets: the operator builds the subway and in exchange receives the right to develop the land around the stations: apartments, offices, shopping centers. Those real estate income are what pay for the railway investment. Tap to go to the post What’s to come. As if the Shenzhen metro itself were … Read more

Shenzhen metro is transforming into an autonomous logistics network. The key is a legion of AI robovans

During the day, Shenzhen’s stations look, in some ways, like those of any big city: full of movement, loudspeakers and announcements marking the passage of trains. But when traffic eases, something changes. In the same space where a few hours ago there were crowds, autonomous vehicles and small robots appear that move with precision, transporting packages from one point to another. There is no spectacle or artifice, just a different use of a familiar environment. The metro network, designed for travelers, is also beginning to serve urban logistics at a time when every minute and every square meter counts. The idea of ​​taking advantage of the subway to move goods does not arise on a whim. In Shenzhen, as in many large Chinese cities, surface traffic has become in an obstacle for daily logistics. Delivery companies deal with extreme urban density and the constant growth of e-commerce, which forces them to deliver faster and with increasingly tight margins. Using trains outside of peak hours allows us to alleviate this pressure and reduce costs, while at the same time making use of infrastructure that usually remains underused for much of the day. When travelers leave, robots stay According to the Xinhua agencyone of the officially documented pilots takes place on line 11 of the Shenzhen metro. Every night in Futian District, SF Express staff sort and pack packages, which are then loaded into metal cages. These cages are transported by means of a autonomous shuttle vehicle to the platform, where they are destined for the sixth coach of the train, enabled as a logistics car during off-peak hours. In less than thirty minutes, the goods cross the most congested stretch of the city and arrive at the Bihaiwan area, near the airport, where they continue their journey to the distribution center. The aforementioned operation is supported by a fleet of robovans. Nikkei Asia explains that These are small vehicles capable of moving autonomously along predetermined routes, where they transfer packages from a storage center to the subway loading area. Each one can transport up to 500 kilos and has a useful space of about 3 cubic meters. Another official test takes place on subway line 2, at Wanxia station, where delivery robots are able to board the train by themselves to deliver goods to stores 7-Eleven inside the station. The system, described by Guangdong Department of Transportationcombines autonomous route planning, laser sensors and a control system that allows it to move safely between passengers. The project, promoted by Shenzhen Metro Group, Vanke and Wanwei Logistics, remains in the testing phase and seeks to verify whether it can be applied on a larger scale in the city’s underground commercial network. The Chinese industrial ecosystem is one of the reasons why these types of projects are advancing so quickly. The aforementioned newspaper highlights that strong competition between national manufacturers has made key components such as LiDAR sensors cheaper and has driven the development of more efficient batteries and specific chips for autonomous driving. On this basis, production costs are significantly reduced. A robovan is already between 20 and 30% cheaper than a traditional commercial vehicle, and the difference increases by eliminating cabin space and the cost of the driver. The development of these initiatives is not without difficulties. Autonomous vehicles still depend on human supervision at various stagesespecially in the loading and unloading of goods. Its speed inside the stations is reduced to guarantee the safety of passengers, and that limits the operational pace. For now, operations remain limited and are far from mass application. Even so, they reflect a clear trend: the attempt to optimize each section of urban space, even the underground. Shenzhen functions as a laboratory for a model that seeks efficiency without altering the rhythm of the city. Ultimately, these tests speak less about technology than about management: about how a metro network can serve two different purposes while remaining, above all, a public service. Images | Guangdong Department of Transportation (1, 2, 34, 5) | Shenzhen Government (1) In Xataka | Many Spanish ports have become luxury resorts for the rich: owning a pleasure boat is increasingly difficult

China’s boom in the world of technology, visit to the headquarters of Byd in Shenzhen and much more in 1×14 crossover

China has gone from being The world factory To be not only the world factory, but Pioneers in the world of technology. In a matter of just a few decades the Chinese market has made a huge quanti and qualitative leap, see His advances in the world of artificial intelligence, consumption devices, The appliances either vehicles. That leads to ask a question: In what situation is the West right now? It is a most interesting debate and with many edges, edges that we address in the 14th crossover episode. In the program, conducted by Carlos Santaengrandencia and Jaume Lahoz and already available on YouTubewe talk about this growth of China, how (and why) has taken so many giant steps and in what situation are currently both the United States and Europe. It is an episode, in fact, very focused on China. Both Carlos and our partner Alberto de la Torre They were recently in Xi’an (Shenzhen), home of the Central Headquarters of Byd. Not only did they have the opportunity to visit the area, but they could enter the factorysee how the firm’s electric cars are produced and test the fast loaders first hand. Fast, level: 400 kilometers of autonomy in just five minutes. In short, a very interesting program that helps us better know the world of technology, As geopolitics defines this market and the peculiarities of a country that advances at the speed of lightning. All this and much more, as always, in the new Crossover episode. On YouTube | Crossover

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