Lujiazui station of metro line 14 in Shanghai (photo: Shanghai Metro)

Shanghai is going to open a new driverless metro line, Line 14 on Thursday, adding the number of its metro lines being equipped with driverless technology to five, the city announced on Tuesday.

The north section of Shanghai's Line 18 phase 1, which will mainly cover the city's northern Pudong New Area and northeastern Yangpu district, is to debut on Thursday as well. Its south section opened last December.

With the new opens, the total length of all metro lines in Shanghai will increase to 831 kilometers, maintaining Shanghai's position as the city with the largest metro network in the world. The city will enjoy 20 metro lines with 508 stations, 83 of which are transfer ones.

With 167 kilometers driverless metro lines, Shanghai will also rank first in terms of driverless metro scale for the first time, according to Shanghai Metro.

The brand new 38-kilometer metro Line 14 passes through some of Shanghai's main areas including Jiading, Putuo, Jing'an, Huangpu districts and Pudong New Area with 31 stations. 

Some of the city's most renowned tourist attractions and landmarks in downtown, including Jing'an Temple and Lujiazui, are accessible by metro line 14.

"I've been looking forward to metro Line 14 for a long time," a Shanghai resident surnamed Qi told the Global Times on Tuesday. There is a new metro Line 14 station only 100 meters away from Qi's home in suburban Jiading district, said the 20-something.

The upcoming metro line will shorten Qi's commute time from nearly one hour to some 20 minutes, said Qi. "That will be quite convenient to me."


Global Times