China’s National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC) released a document earlier this month requesting cities around the country to build modern multi-platform transportation hubs by 2020, 100 for operating high speed trains and 50 for aircraft.
The document instructs cities to plan reasonable accessibility as well as sufficient floor space, which should be around 0.1 to 0.4 square meters per person.
The NDRC also demanded that changing transportation methods should take less than an hour with no more than two transfers at each hub in megacities. China defines a megacity as those containing a population ranging from five to ten million, making cities with a larger population “gigacities” according to its standard, which was modified in 2014.
China has experienced large volumes of domestic travelling, especially during official holidays. During the Labor Day holidays this year, ten major cities, including Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou, had recorded over 19.28 million vehicles crossing borders.
China’s 13th Five-Year Plan is aiming to ease this pressure on road capacity, building a more efficient nationwide public transportation network.
Yang Chuantang, Minister of Transportation of China, says that by the end of the 13th Five-Year Plan, an improved transportation system will allow for more than 90% of China’s population to have access to bullet trains.