Local standards drafted for metro

The city's transportation authority plans to issue local standards for metro operation safety, local media reported Monday.

A draft of the standards has been completed and has been reviewed by transportation experts, though authorities haven't disclosed when the standards will be released to the public, said Sun Zhang, a professor at the Institute of Railway and Urban Mass Transit at Tongji University, who led the review of the standards.

The standards, which include requirements for systems such as the operation management system, the power system and the signal system, will serve as reference for metro staff to determine whether the metro is operating safely, Sun told the Global Times.

The national standards for metro operation safety were issued in 2007. The local standards are based on safety reviews of the city's entire metro system in 2002 and a review of lines 1, 2, 3 and 4 in 2013, Sun said.

The reviews found 315 problems that affect operation safety, Sun said.

About 7 percent of the problems are classified as serious, such as land subsidence that throws the railway tracks out of alignment, Sun said.

Sun refused to disclose further details because the draft of the standards still needs to be fine-tuned.

The systems most likely to experience problems are the power system, the signal system and the metro train cars, according to a report in the Oriental Morning Post.

The standards contain requirements for the train cars, such as buckles for wheelchairs, the report said.

Regarding the signal system, the standards require that devices be installed to prevent passengers' Wi-Fi devices from interfering with the metro's signal system.

The standards also require metro lines that have operated for more than 10 years to undergo at least one safety inspection every five years, Sun said. Lines that have been operating for fewer than 10 years must be inspected every three years.