Huai’an Streetcar Project Invested and Constructed by STEC Starts to Carry Passengers

2015-12-28

On December 28, 2015, modern streetcars in Huai’an city, which are invested, designed, constructed and operated by STEC, the integrated services provider, officially entered the trial operation stage and started to carry passengers. There are 23 stations on the whole line of the first-stage project, with the whole length of 20.07 kilometers. The most advanced intelligent traffic control system has been adopted. The streetcars can be charged by super-capacitor when they stop and the kinetic energy can be recycled when the streetcars brake, achieving truly green traffic.

STEC invested about 3.65 billion yuan in Huai’an Streetcar Project and offered the innovation scheme of “BOT + equity transfer” by using private equity to bring in financial investors. In this new mode, the local government will buy-back stock rights instead of capital, which can significantly reduce tax cost; STEC as project manager remains the dominant role during the project, which can ensure continuous operation and share more risk with the government.

The Streetcar Project in Huai'an has the longest streetcar lines without touching the net in China. Signal loop lines are installed under the pitch surface in urban area and concealed wiring, the initiate method at home and abroad is adopted. Technologies such as customizing holder, customizing insulate adapting pieces and pouring with concrete ensure the stable functioning of the loop lines. Green monolithic roadbed technology is adopted, integrating streetcar lines into the green belt in the middle of the urban streets, as a result, track and grass blend together, perfecting modification of the track. Besides, STEC has successfully applied high-speed rail track construction to streetcar track construction by using CPIII measurement control technology, thus achieving high quality and standard of the whole engineering.

In the aspect of maintenance, Huai’an project department of STEC municipal maintenance, together with local operating companies, conducted overall on-site supervision and inspection on preparation, safety, and emergency response of the trial operation. The whole process of modern streetcars in Huai’an went smoothly and steadily on the first day of operation, which was praised by passengers. In the future, the number of streetcars will increase from 12 to 26, with departure interval decreasing to 3 and half minutes. At that time, streetcars in Huai’an, with the first streetcar line in China to enter the core area in the city, will furthest relieve traffic pressure in central urban area. Besides, Huai’an traffic network will further expand, with streetcar lines as the main skeleton, exploring the way for the Jianghuai region to form the green and rapid “city on the track”.  

Considering the overall development of the traffic in the future, Huai’an streetcar plan attaches most importance to taking backbone buses as the main body in the medium term, with reserved rail transit interface in the long term. As the trunk line of urban public transport in the short term, the line connects four districts of Huai’an, thus strengthening contact between the districts, which is beneficial to the traffic expansion of central urban area; in the future, the line will form the whole network with rail transit, which meets the demand of traffic influx without conflicting against the rail transit, allowing the long-term development of traffic.