The Mass-Produced Metros of China | Rapid Transit Standardization 

What vpn did you use to get here haha

This is the best way to do it, wish we’d copy this for infrastructure in the US

​@@whose-hu lol I live aborad.

有意思

Nonsense, I am Chinese. He's talking about panic. Every train station and airport is different. Combine it with the local culture.

I grew up in Shenzhen as a metro train lover, and I can assure you there will always be some downsides to a decision-making system. For a most recent example, due to policy changes, Shenzhen's next phase of metro project has been trimmed greatly trying to get through review, even though some lines being cut off is, in fact, quite needed. And even then, the approved version of blueprint released this month has been cut down again. That's probably the old debate of centralisation vs decentralisation all over again, but still, think you might want to know. I'd also like to mention that the more humane part (e.g. the line maps, the visual guides, etc.) isn't what the Chinese are doing well with standardisation. Guangzhou and Shenzhen started by trying to copy Hong Kong MTR, then themselves getting copied by many other cities, eventually resulting in messy systems that are somewhat lousy. (Big kudos to Chongqing Metro, who developed their own visual symbology.)

Mass production has actually lead to much greater reliability generally!

Also in italy

@@accuratebalance5097 Well the standardization referred to in this video is more about train set themselves, so there aren't really many downsides here. Though I do agree that the standard for whether or how high-standard new metro lines are allowed is still a bit limited in China. As someone who grows up in Shanghai, Line 6/8 were way too crowded due to their Type-C trains, but budget was tight when they were built. Now Shanghai Metro learnt the lesson and always build new line with Type-A trains😂. They also had to build new lines designed to take some load off line 6/8. Luckily situation has been improving all these years, and new lines are usually more flexible.

@@RMTransit I’d love to see similar standards here in Canada. As you mentioned, we’ve got quite the mix - even within cities!

Meanwhile, Metrolinx is running around bleating with excitement over every minor movement of the two TBMs they have currently operating under Eglinton Ave in Toronto. And what do we suppose will happen to those TBMs when they're done digging? Instead of moving directly to the next project site, they're going to be disassembled, aren't they?

@@warren_r they will need to be refurbished so that would happen anyway. They might be used on Eglinton West I suppose.

I believe they also do more TBM reuse than other places too

@@_seola_ man, that must be a boring machine if the workers aren't interested of it!

China bought its tunnel boring machine (TBM) from abroad, it was expensive, when it was down it had to wait for service from abroad. China then put a team of engineers and designers together to design its own TBM. China not only selling its own TBM it also manufacture for some of its competitors. it's the economy of scale that set China apart from its competitors

It's not a coincidence - both countries committed to rapid industrialization and the natural consequence of that is standardizing stuff so you can build an assembly line out of it. People get too caught up in the economic or political arguments, but it's true that if you build for greater efficiency, you'll get more stuff done, always.

The main difference between metros of China and Soviet Union is that Soviet Union has created an unique standard meanwhile China has created a modular standard, where there'are many different standardized solution to combine to obtain the best solution for every situation.

@@d1234as This reminds of the DUEWAG Type B LRV deployed on NRW cities, though each still came with small differences like type of motor (AC or DC), top speed (80 or 100 km/h) or amount axles (most had six with one articulation per car but some had eight and thus two articulations) but general dimensions and floor height are all standarised and allow for interoperability between each system (though as of today, only Cologne and Bonn take advantage of this).

​@MarioFanGamer It is really interesting that Germany tried to do what the USSR and PRC has done! And this effort is pretty straightforward. But Germany doesn't have a national standard on how to build train systems. For example S-Bahn trains like in Berlin will never operate here in Frankfurt because of another electrification system (750V DC third rail vs 15kV AC overhead wires). At least Munich, Frankfurt and Stuttgart standardized their S-Bahn systems but there are still differences with other systems. Berlin (Großprofil-lines), Munich, Vienna and even Nürnberg (through the U-Bahn there is more light-rail than heavy rail, despite third rail electrification) uses the same standardized metro cars. But German systems are still different from city to city, there's no national building standards of transit system in Germany just like in the former Soviet Union or the People's Republic of (Mainland) China.

@@sobu_hasy Too much history, and less pressure to standardize than with standard rail - notice that one has a lot of standardization in spite of the history! (Incidentally, the reason Germany's trains drive on the right, whereas many of our neighbors have trains driving on the left, is that when trains were new, Germans thought English engineers were too expensive, and the engineer who came up with the first larger systems here decided to do it that way. The others paid for English engineers, who had the trains drive left like at home. History.)

like NYC did in the Queens 100 years ago

Makes sense in a way because it's alot easier to build a station when the area is empty vs. having to fit a station onto existing buildings/infrastructure.

Hawaii seems to be doing that, since they're building from mostly empty East Kapolei to the Airport and on to Ala Moana.

Because China is urbanizing fast. People are moving from villages to cities.

@@arbs3ry the US is now 83% urban and 17% rural. Does that count?

yeah its just capitalism working as intended everywhere else, and especially in part with corruption in the states. gotta get those 'donations' 👀

So the elder bosses on transportation have been taken by the new generation as Floridaors welcome offices from SanJose due to the HS rail issue and reach an amazing end on the scheme effeciently which will be expanded for its prospecting convenience to meet the state's future with the revolution in its design enbeneficted a lot by the techleaders.I suppose more and more such inspiring examples will realize in the future as it could goes normal just like connecting the Internet every day now

Thats why China can also do it so easily, since anything gov say can be build ( in theory ofc, there are also a lot of failed projects).

@@JackieWelles So they could threat alot when it comes to a war

Exactly, as a Chinese living in Australia I can see why it takes years to build anything here, company politics and different gourds have their own schema, governments cannot say nan to anyone, so all wants to have a word in the system.

We just want something that works. Ttc makes fumes come out of my ears each and every day

@@paniniman6524 That's a product of endless squabbling more than anything.

Because politicians don't use it

Canada and USA are destroyed by a few dirty lying politicians talking BS and ripping off tax payers.

@@AmelieZh speaking of which, the transit planners in china, yes from senior to junior civil servants, takes transit to work. I think not many civil servants in other countries does the same.

Loved the Shenzhen metro too

Correct, I know Guangzhou well and been to Shenzhen too

Back here in Vietnam with motorbike and taxi.... Metro in Shenzhen feel more like a dream for me

Yep some have more unique designs for sure!

Saw some videos before, can't remember what city, the station looks like an fancy big airport.

@@cinpeace353 Shenzhen new metro station? Walk East channel has videos of metro stations in other cities that r very impressive, Guangzhou, Wuhan, Chengdu

Every time I go back to Beijing, there's a new line on the map. I used to memorise how I would get to places, but later on, I realised it was futile. Basically every other trip back, there's a new line built and a new route would save me some time. It's crazy how much it changed since I left.

chinese knew the importance of standardization when china was first unified from 7 seperated chinese kingdoms since 2200 yrs ago. the first thing emperor qin did was to standardize currencies, all sorts weights & measurements, writing systems, political structure of all levels of govts, legal codes, population census, tax records, road width, carriage width, weapon systems.....

When infrastructure projects are privatized, companies who won the bid will purposely try to create a dependency to their services, so as to maximize their profits for the long term. There will also be many problems when planning between public and private zones/lands. China's one party system and centralize government eliminates many of these issues, since decisions are done quickly and effectively. Not to mention the enormous amount of man power China has, who are all very proud to be building/improving their country.

As a college student majoring in civil engineering, I would say that the reason why China's infrastructure is building so fast is because there is a large number of cheap labor. I'm going to be one of them: doing the hardest work for the lowest pay. Anywhere in China is very modern, rich and convenient. But the only thing that pains me is that the population is so competitive that we may take 1/5 of Americans' salaries and do 3 times the workload of Americans. In China, standard working hours and overtime systems have been difficult to implement. We are too tired, and the treatment of foreigners coming to China is much better than that of Chinese citizens.

@@user-gh5pv2cp8c except that is false and young people start rejecting to participate in civil engineering, but the construction still continues because the so called "cheap labours" are actually robots and AIs.

now there are eighteen lines in Chengdu! U can go there and have a try, that's huge changes!

I’m jealous!

@@ChengHe-zv6so Not yet! The line numbers go up to 18 tho

I first visited Shanghai in 2005 when there were only 4 lines in operation (1, 2, 3, and 5). I have lived here since 2007 when there were only 5 lines (Line 4 was partially open when I first moved here). Now there are 18 in operation (19 if you count the Pujiang Line APM), with 4 more under construction (including one out to Chongming Island in the Yangtze River Delta) and 3 higher speed regional rail lines under construction as well. The speed of Metro construction here is crazy.

I visited Chengdu in 2017 and there were only two (three?) lines then. Crazy how much they've expanded past few years

Some forms of standardization are increasing, but I’d argue it’s not industry wide

I find standardisation sensible but boring. I live in London and miss the variety of old sub surface tube trains compared to the new more standardised ones.

İstanbul, even with the m11, has got to be one of the most unstandardized cities in terms of rolling stock. They have high speed Chinese metros, overhead wire and 3rd rail Rotem metros, Alstom automated light metros, Hyundai automated medium metros, long commuter rail trains by Hyundai, 3rd rail trams, high floor trams and low floor trams. The only standardized thing might be their funiculars

Please note that France will work on the trains, power, and signaling in Belgrade. Tunnels and stations will be done by China.

@Transit space - It’s worth specifying that in your hypothesis - or: “standards are becoming much more common as they reduce costs” - what’s specifically meant by this (in most industries) is “standards reduce costs *for the manufacturer* of the product, without forcing a reduction in the product’s price-point, usually resulting in greater profits for the production plant’s owner,” and what this translates to most accurately is “once having established market dominance, manufacturers then remove choice, both to increase profit by shifting all the costs of customization onto the purchaser, and to prevent any smaller would-be competitors from gaining an industry foothold, by forcing competitors to adhere to standards where the market-dominant player has the benefit of manufacturing scale.” I simply point this out because, at least in the U.S.A., in the ‘80s there arose this anti-antitrust philosophy (championed by Robert Bork, among others) which held that massive mergers, market dominance by two or three players, even outright monopolies, weren’t really problems so long as there resulted “a reduction in cost” for consumers. And of course the results of this 40-year project - of merging and consolidating and “standardizing” and replacing choice with the illusion of choice across all industries - has been disastrous in all but a few instances for everyone save for the very wealthiest of capital-holders. The phrase “standards reduce costs” seems blithely rosy, and that’s because it skirts around whose costs are reduced - the top capital-holders’ production costs - and glosses over where those costs are shifted: onto the rest of us, to be extracted as countless physical, financial, social, and emotional tolls. So I fleshed out some of the details.

Seems like India is also mass building metros too. I'd like to watch an explanation video to see what's going on for India's metros.

​@@GMDThread8 he already has one. Covering all cities and one dedicated to delhi

@@kartik_sinha Ah yes. I'll check it out!

I couldn’t agree more!

@@RMTransit I hope its in works but Mumbai Metro development is worth looking into. 3 lines opened, 1 monorail , infamous suburban rail and already 10 metro lines either under construction or development phase.

Haha, many times!

As far as I know, Toronto’s system was initially designed to be slightly different from standard trains to prevent big trains from wandering around Toronto’s streets. Then, the most recent liberal government was pushing one standard LRT train and standard payment system for all of southern Ontario. But then the latest Metrolinx head has gone crazy and started to push for crazy trains again built using Iraqi war contractors, so Toronto will not get the benefits of standard trains or standard stations or standard construction methods or anything.

Probably infrastructure in general.

The economy in general, comrade!

@@mato8225 no. For the economy you need a double system where large scale infrastructure and industry work is centrally planned and standardized while smaller scale and consumer targeted industry is locally done, preferably with coops or owner operator businesses. The local is better at meeting the rapidly changing needs and desires of a diverse population while large scale industry benefits from standardization and central planning to ensure smooth and uninterrupted work flow.

@@adorabell4253 damn right 👍

You don't need a centrally planned economy to standardize. Just look at the US road network. Not even the interstates, just regular roads. Every state has its own highway department and every city has its own roadworks division and yet all the roads use more or less the same markings and same signage. There's one standard manual they all base their processes on published by the federal government and there's nothing forcing them all to follow it (and they all diverge in various ways) but you can drive any vehicle from one state to the next without relearning how the roads work or changing your vehicle.

老乡！

老乡，我南京板桥的

马鞍山对吧

They were made to forget. Good streetcar networks = fewer opportunities to sell cars, so ... Same goes for zoning.

China has a big market which can let the company apply the local standard with huge amount of orders. Customise is very expensive when order amount is low. Small countries can only follow the companies' standards or other countries' standards.

The only Chinese rolling stock manufacturer not affiliated to CRRC is Beijing Subway Rolling Stock Equipment or BSR.

You are very knowlegible supreme leader

We haven't seen many depopulation issues in major cities yet, but I can recall a few cases of temporarily "borrowing" subway trains from other lines. Such as Beijing line 8, which borrowed the entire fleet from line 10 during operation phase 1, to meet the deadline of the 2008 Summer Olympics.

New Moscow subway lines were built by CRRC even in winters with temperature - 35 C .TBMs had hard time working because of hydraulic oil freeze but they had solved the problem with additives...

@@jimmylam9846 indeed, CRRC built tunnel constructions in parts of the recently-opened BKL (big circle line) in Moscow. They built two-track 10-meter-diameter tunnels for 4,5 km in the west of the BKL and for 3 km in the east.

I’d say they are still modern! Many are at least!

I wouldn't say Japanese trains are not modern. They roll out new types of trains every few years. And Tokyo metro trains are very new and clean.

But sometimes it's kind of boring. What is the point of travelling if there is no new experience? I expect at least different decors inside the car.

@@cachem11 the point of traveling is getting from point A to point B. The destinations are more important I guess.

How many cities in china have metro system?

@@Santanibalak1 more than 40? you may search Wikipedia for that like "Urban Rail Transit in China"

@@MrCindyhill i don't see Wikipedia as a authentic source specially when we comes on asia for example india have 20 metro cities and 17 are under development but Wikipedia say that India have only 13 Matro cities

@@Santanibalak1 Well, if that is the case, the central government also reports the number of cities that have metro systems. By the end of 2022, there are 53 cities in China have 290 rail transit lines in total. That is 9584 km and 5609 stations. Very few of them are trams so most of them are metro

@@MrCindyhill Nice, china is 1st in all types trains like high speed train, mono rail or metros or rapid metro And also all western countries metro system aren't so good I see few of them in Germany

Und dann kam Stuttgart und sagte: schön und gut aber wir machen doch was eigenes.😂

Guangzhou to Donguang is less than an hour.

My pleasure!

Plus you have the Brisbane "Metro" that really isn't a metro, but one giant gadgetbahn.

As well as some lines in Chongqing.

Cities can decorate stations if they have extra money (i.e. for Europe). But probably not possible for Europe, because small cities without metro don't have money for it and big cities have existing systems. Though, trams are kinda standard (at least they look like).

i think that's mostly a result of the current zeitgeist of architectural and design philosophy. the systems in the western world go back over a century of history, so there is a lot of variation in how stations or train cars look. but almost all of these chinese systems are brand new and are thus designed in a neomodern way. i think they'll look back at it the way we do with our old ceramic tiled stations: timeless yet a thing of the past and outdated

👍

It is always better take over designs that works then invite a new one 😎

The exported HSR in Indonesia uses Chinese trains and standards if I'm not wrong, as does the railway in Laos, too bad corrupt politicians in Malaysia blocked our HSR project

Sometimes, weird, non-standard systems are necessary... the problem is how often they're used when they're not.

The current line to Lhasa via Golmud is not high speed rail, it's conventional rail (120-160km/h max). They are building a new line from Chengdu to Lhasa to open around 2030 which will significantly reduce travel time to about 10-12 hours from Chengdu, but it still will only have an operational speed of 160km/h so is not considered HSR.

@@LukeRichardson1981 Thanks for the info. This is surprisingly hard to find. I suppose HSR is hard to do on mountains.

Still it is a lot fancier than US systems

And rail. The inter-city railways in china are really impressive with a huge high-speed network

@@o_s-24 but not impressive when talking about fares... 广铁 is the worst offender of having expensive-as-hell ticket fares.

@@GMDThread8 笑死，抢铁是吧哈哈哈

We shall see

@@GMDThread8 lol. Check out the prices in Australia if you want to see what overpriced train travel looks like.