China starts driverless metro service for Asian Games
By IANSTuesday, November 9, 2010
BEIJING - China’s Guangzhou city, venue for the Asian Games, has launched a metro train service that can be operated without a driver.
The four-kilometre metro service links the Tianhe district in the north and Haizhu district in the south of the Guangdong provincial capital, China Daily reported Tuesday.
The line passes through the populous central business district of Guangzhou and was built to alleviate the pressure on a parallel metro line, said Ding Jianlong, general manager of the Guangzhou Metro Corporation.
The manual control of the train won’t be accurate as there is a station at every 300 meters, said Ding.
The 16th Asian Games will be held in Guangzhou Nov 12-27.
To reduce traffic congestion in the city before and during the Games, Guangzhou planned to offer free buses and metro rides for 49 days starting from Nov 1.
But the plan had to be aborted after a week as the subway trains saw the number of passengers doubled to eight million daily.
