From 26 January, the Guangzhou-Shenzhen-Hong Kong High-Speed Railway will be China’s busiest rail corridor thanks to a new train schedule sharply increasing train frequency and expanding direct connections between Hong Kong and the mainland.
The revised schedule introduces 52 additional services, bringing the number of daily passenger trains on the route up to 415, according to China Daily. Peak hours will see a departure every two minutes, on average, when the line runs at its maximum capacity of 30 trains per hour.
It will also raise the number of mainland stations offering direct connections to Hong Kong to 110 – adding new high-speed rail services to the SAR from cities like Nanjing and Wuxi in Jiangsu province, and Hefei in Anhui province.
The changes include measures aimed at easing congestion at Shenzhen’s notoriously crowded railway network, with services to Zhanjiang in western Guangdong province departing from Shenzhen Railway Station rather than Shenzhen North Station.
[See more: Shenzhen’s main train station breaks records, but passengers complain of overcrowding]
Futian Station, located in Shenzhen’s central business district, will launch new direct services to Hefei and Nanchang, targeting business and leisure travellers while helping to relieve pressure on Shenzhen North. Shenzhen East Station, meanwhile, will focus primarily on conventional-speed passenger services.
The railway has already seen strong demand this year. Between 1 and 12 January, it carried more than one million cross-border passengers, travelling for business and tourism purposes, as well as daily commutes.
Journeys between Shenzhen and Hong Kong accounted for 63 percent of total cross-border traffic during the period.
Next Monday will also see the first direct high-speed rail service between Macao’s mainland neighbour, Zhuhai, and the Fujian provincial capital of Fuzhou, which officials say should encourage tourism flows and multi-destination travel for foreign visitors.
