Beijing’s subway system experienced its busiest day on record last Friday, when the number of passengers exceeded 12 million for the first time.
With the average number of daily users already above 10 million, Friday’s surge in passengers saw a total of 12,098,900 people using the system. Data released by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport also shows that it was the second record-breaking Friday in a row, after almost 11.9 million passed through on March 18.
In 2013, it was announced that Beijing had surpassed Moscow as having the busiest subway system in the world, when a then record 10.27 million people rode its trains. And while the number of people using the system dropped by around 8 percent in late 2014, after ticket prices were increased from a flat rate of RMB2, the expansion in the number of lines has increased overall capacity.
Officials also attributed Friday’s surge in passengers to the warm weather and the upcoming Qingming Festival.
With ambitious plans to increase the number of subway lines to 30 within the next four years, last week’s record is unlikely to stand for long. Speaking to The Guardian last year, Yang Xingkun of the Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, predicted that the number of daily users could hit 16 million by 2020.
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