No need to purchase tickets in advance, ticket price is 20 yuan. The Hangzhou Ningbo intercity train has opened its route | Train | Ticket price
Today, the intercity train from Hangzhou South Station to Ningbo is in operation, marking the first time that intercity trains have been opened in Hangzhou, Shaoxing, and Ningbo. The intercity train has a total length of 147 kilometers and takes 2 hours to complete, with a ticket price of only 20 yuan.
Passengers can directly swipe Ningbo or Shaoxing bus card, WeChat bus code, Alipay bus code and one-way ticket to enter and exit the station without purchasing tickets in advance.
At the beginning of its opening, there were relatively few intercity train services between Hangzhou South Station and Ningbo Station, with only two trips per day. However, the cost performance was relatively high. Previously, there were 24 trains from Ningbo to Hangzhou South Station per day, with high-speed trains taking only 43 minutes at the fastest and second-class seats costing 64 yuan. Regular speed trains took 2 hours and 3 minutes at the fastest, and hard seat prices were 23.5 yuan, both of which were more expensive than intercity trains. In the future, intercity trains can serve as a supplement to railway passenger transportation.
Next, the Ningbo Intercity Railway will optimize and increase its frequency based on actual passenger flow, and strive to connect intercity trains to Hangzhou East Station or Hangzhou Station, creating a public transportation operated Hangzhou Shaoxing Ningbo intercity train route.
The special feature of this intercity train line is that it makes use of the old railway line, allowing the old railway to give full play to its waste heat. It utilizes the Xiaoyong Railway, which was built in 1937. Many years ago, the Xiaoyong Railway was a major transportation artery in eastern Zhejiang. During busy hours, it operated over 100 pairs of passenger and freight trains throughout the day, carrying a large amount of passenger flow between Hangzhou and Ningbo. However, after the opening and operation of the Hangzhou Ningbo high-speed railway 10 years ago, the situation changed. In 2017, the Xiaoyong Railway operated less than 60 pairs of passenger and freight trains throughout the day, with a utilization rate of less than half of the transportation capacity, resulting in a large amount of surplus transportation capacity. Therefore, the idea of "running intercity trains on the Xiaoyong Railway" gradually became a reality.
The reporter once visited Qianqing Station in Shaoxing for an interview. This is a small railway station that had already cancelled passenger transportation in the late 1990s. It was only a few years ago that it was able to resume passenger transportation as an intercity railway station.
The most prominent feature of using existing lines to open intercity trains is to avoid excessive railway construction and spend small money on big things. In December 2019, Lianyungang utilized the transportation capacity of the Lianyungang Lianyungang to Lianyungang section of the Longhai Railway to operate urban trains in Lianyungang. It connected the newly built Xulian High Speed Railway to the Lianyungang High Speed Railway Station, including the Lianyungang Development Zone, Lianyungang Area, and Xuwei Area, which were not covered by the new Xulian High Speed Railway. On August 11, 2021, the suburban railway in Taizhou was opened for operation, utilizing the surplus transportation capacity of the Jintai Railway, which had just opened in June of that year.
This model will continue to be replicated, and in the future, Hangzhou plans to use the existing capacity of the Hangzhou Huang high-speed railway to increase intercity trains and create a commuting transportation circle between the urban area of Hangzhou and western counties and cities.
