4 ms·

It's more than hundreds of millions: over 2 billion journeys are made on the network per year. It's roughly 10 times what Japanese HSR does per year (195 millio

It's more than hundreds of millions: over 2 billion journeys are made on the network per year. It's roughly 10 times what Japanese HSR does per year (195 million journeys), and 1000 times what the one American HSR route does (2 million, and only 50 miles of track at that speed). In 2013, it moved twice as many people as domestic air travel. Today, it's more like 5 times. It's not exactly an unused ghost railway system.

maxglute 3y ago
>moved twice as many people as domestic air travel Which is key point, PRC does not have enough air space corridors to scale air travel. 90% of PRC population on west of country, imagine 1.2B people concentrated in western US.
- Arnt 3y ago
  Is this something you know or something you assume? «In 2022, Seoul Gimpo-Jeju continued its streak as the busiest route, with over 15.6 million passengers making the trip at an average of 226 daily flight movements.» If PRC is as congested as you say, wouldn't one of its city pairs be the record holder? I currently live in Germany, where the population is about 50% denser than PRC, and haven't heard anything about air space corridors here being congested.
  - Arnt 3y ago
    Following up to myself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes#By_aircraft_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_... has the most congested Chinese route at number 7, just behind Riyadh-Jeddah, and its traffic is only 31% of Seoul-Jeju.
    - maxglute 3y ago
      Sorry for late reply. The wiki data is covid timeframe, and not indicative. Jeju's Gimhae airport lists 60k aircraft movements and served 10m passports in 2022. Shanghai's Pudong lists 350K aircraft movements and 30m passengers in 2021. Frankfurt Airport lists 380k aircraft movement and 50m passengers. Most major PRC airports have >300k aircraft movements and move 30-40m people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_China#2021_final_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_i... Look at 2020 stats, that's what's saturating limited air corridors. There's 11 airports that moves over 20m people with over 200k aircraft movements. Which is fraction of HSR's near 2B trips. As more chinese get richer and want to travel internally, HSR is only choice. That's without mentioning New years which is impossible to accommodate with air. HSR moves huge number bodies and saves 100s of millions hours vs slow trains trip. PRC domestic flight delays is well known for anyone that regularly flies in PRC and can compare to west, like EU/NA. The unspoken reason is US military bases in region means coastal flight corridors that are shared with military aviation which gets higher priority. There's a joke that PRC commercial flight would be smoother once they take over Taiwan, because then military aviation can push out away from coastal regions.

maxglute 3y ago

>moved twice as many people as domestic air travel Which is key point, PRC does not have enough air space corridors to scale air travel. 90% of PRC population on west of country, imagine 1.2B people concentrated in western US.

Arnt 3y ago
Is this something you know or something you assume? «In 2022, Seoul Gimpo-Jeju continued its streak as the busiest route, with over 15.6 million passengers making the trip at an average of 226 daily flight movements.» If PRC is as congested as you say, wouldn't one of its city pairs be the record holder? I currently live in Germany, where the population is about 50% denser than PRC, and haven't heard anything about air space corridors here being congested.
- Arnt 3y ago
  Following up to myself: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_routes#By_aircraft_movements https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_busiest_passenger_air_... has the most congested Chinese route at number 7, just behind Riyadh-Jeddah, and its traffic is only 31% of Seoul-Jeju.
  - maxglute 3y ago
    Sorry for late reply. The wiki data is covid timeframe, and not indicative. Jeju's Gimhae airport lists 60k aircraft movements and served 10m passports in 2022. Shanghai's Pudong lists 350K aircraft movements and 30m passengers in 2021. Frankfurt Airport lists 380k aircraft movement and 50m passengers. Most major PRC airports have >300k aircraft movements and move 30-40m people. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_in_China#2021_final_statistics https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_busiest_airports_i... Look at 2020 stats, that's what's saturating limited air corridors. There's 11 airports that moves over 20m people with over 200k aircraft movements. Which is fraction of HSR's near 2B trips. As more chinese get richer and want to travel internally, HSR is only choice. That's without mentioning New years which is impossible to accommodate with air. HSR moves huge number bodies and saves 100s of millions hours vs slow trains trip. PRC domestic flight delays is well known for anyone that regularly flies in PRC and can compare to west, like EU/NA. The unspoken reason is US military bases in region means coastal flight corridors that are shared with military aviation which gets higher priority. There's a joke that PRC commercial flight would be smoother once they take over Taiwan, because then military aviation can push out away from coastal regions.