Nanjing City
As the first approved cross-provincial metropolitan area in China, the Nanjing Metropolitan Area continues to make strides in developing a “metropolitan area on rails”.
Recently, the “8+2” member cities of the Nanjing Metropolitan Area gathered in Nanjing to jointly plan the blueprint for integrated transportation development in the Nanjing Metropolitan Area. The meeting reviewed and approved the “Comprehensive Transportation System Planning for the Nanjing Metropolitan Area (2024-2035)”, proposing the construction of nine major corridors and three hub clusters. Passenger transportation will achieve one-hour commuting within the Nanjing Metropolitan Area’s integrated development demonstration zone and one-hour accessibility between Nanjing and other cities. According to the plan, two integrated development zones, Ningzhenyang (Nanjing-Zhenjiang-Yangzhou) and Ningmachu (Nanjing-Ma’anshan-Chuzhou), will be established. By accelerating integrated construction, a radial intercity rail and express trunk line “dual fast transportation network” centered on Nanjing will be formed in the future.
The Nanjing Metropolitan Area spans Jiangsu and Anhui provinces, encompassing the entire territories of eight cities: Nanjing, Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Huaian, Wuhu, Ma’anshan, Chuzhou, and Xuancheng, as well as Jintan District and Liyang City in Changzhou. In February 2021, the National Development and Reform Commission approved the “Development Plan for the Nanjing Metropolitan Area”. Last year, the member cities collectively achieved a regional GDP of 5.1 trillion yuan, accounting for approximately 4.0% of the national total.
In the past three years, the connections between Nanjing and its neighboring cities, as well as other member cities in the metropolitan area, have become increasingly close. “Dead-end roads” and “bottleneck roads” have been continuously opened up. Currently, the Nanjing Metropolitan Area has achieved “county-to-county high-speed connectivity”, with 16 provincial highway interfaces and over 60 adjacent bus lines in operation, enhancing the service level of buses and bus-like passenger transport lines in adjacent areas of the metropolitan area.
The “metropolitan area on rails” is accelerating its formation. By the end of last year, the mileage of urban rail transit operation lines in the Nanjing Metropolitan Area reached 567.46 kilometers. High-speed rail or intercity services have been opened between Nanjing and Zhenjiang, Yangzhou, Huaian, Wuhu, Ma’anshan, Chuzhou, and Xuancheng, achieving the planned one-hour accessibility goal. The accessibility rate of high-speed and express railways in the Nanjing Metropolitan Area’s prefecture-level cities is 100%.
In September last year, the Shanghai-Nanjing-Yangzhou-Jiangyin High-speed Railway was opened to traffic, bringing the total mileage of railway operation in the metropolitan area to 2,840 kilometers, with nearly 1,600 kilometers of high-speed and express railways. The area density is approximately 1.3 times that of the Yangtze River Delta and 5.6 times that of the whole country. Currently, projects such as the Shanghai-Chongqing-Chengdu-Wuhan-Nanjing-Shanghai High-speed Railway’s Hefei-Nanjing-Shanghai section, the Nanjing-Huaian intercity railway, and the Nanjing-Xuancheng intercity railway are under accelerated construction, and Nanjing North Railway Station has commenced construction.
According to the planning goals, by 2035, the Nanjing Metropolitan Area will fully establish a safe, convenient, efficient, green, economical, inclusive, and resilient modern integrated transportation system for the metropolitan area. Nine major corridors will be constructed, including the Shanghai-Nanjing Corridor, the Nanjing-Hefei Corridor, the Beijing-Shanghai Corridor, the Nanjing-Hangzhou Corridor, the Nanjing-Bengbu Corridor, the Yangtze River Corridor (Anqing direction), the Yangtze River Corridor (Nantong direction), the Nanjing-Huaian Corridor, and the Nanjing-Xuancheng Corridor. At the same time, three hub clusters will be built, creating the Ningzhenyang-Ningmachu jointly built international comprehensive transportation hub cluster, the Wuhu-Xuancheng jointly built national comprehensive transportation hub cluster, and Huaian as a national comprehensive transportation hub city.
By then, passenger transportation will achieve one-hour commuting within the Nanjing Metropolitan Area’s integrated development demonstration zone, one-hour accessibility between Nanjing and other cities, two-hour connectivity between cities and core cities in the Yangtze River Delta, and three-hour connectivity between the Nanjing Metropolitan Area and major cities nationwide. Cargo transportation will achieve same-day delivery within the Nanjing Metropolitan Area, one-day delivery domestically, two-day delivery to neighboring countries, and three-day delivery to major global cities.
“The plan proposes the construction of nine major corridors and three hub clusters, efficiently connecting major urban agglomerations and economic zones nationwide and providing convenient access to major cities in the Yangtze River Delta. This can fully leverage the Nanjing Metropolitan Area’s geographical advantage as the center of the Yangtze River Delta, connecting the south with the north and the east with the west,” said Zhong Xiaofei, Director of the Comprehensive Planning Institute of the China Highway Engineering Consulting Corporation. According to the “one pole, two zones, four belts, and multiple clusters” spatial layout planned for the Nanjing Metropolitan Area, the “two zones” refer to the Ningzhenyang and Ningmachu integrated development zones. By accelerating integrated construction, a radial intercity rail and express trunk line “dual fast transportation network” centered on Nanjing will be formed in the future. The construction of transportation corridors between outer functional areas and central cities will be accelerated. Combined with industrial characteristics, the Shanghai-Nanjing Innovation Industry Belt, the Yangtze River Green Manufacturing Belt, and the Nanjing-Huangshan Ecological Economic Belt can be developed.