Society

Shanghai gears up for end of event

By Yu Ran and Shi Yingying (China Daily)
Updated: 2010-10-01 10:12

SHANGHAI - Road transportation within the Expo Garden and water transportation to the site have been prepared for the final month of Expo 2010 Shanghai in anticipation of another travel peak.

According to statistics from Expo organizers, nearly 11.5 million, or 95 percent, of visitors had taken public transportation to the Expo Garden as of last Sunday.

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Throughout the event, 1,800 vehicles and 370,000 tourists have been on the site every day, said Sun Lianquan, deputy director of the Expo division of the Shanghai Traffic Police Detachment.

The Expo division of the traffic police detachment began operations in June, with a team of 160 traffic police working at the site on a daily basis. In July, traffic lights were installed at major crossroads with traffic police standing by.

"Center fences on the Expo Avenue, the main road to the Expo Garden, were set up in August to prevent tourists from jaywalking across the road, which presented a safety hazard," said Sun.

Forty traffic coordinators and 176 traffic volunteers were placed on duty from Sept 24 after the tourist flow reached a peak of 630,000 the previous day.

Sun said there are two shifts of traffic coordinators throughout the day and both are required to be on duty when the traffic peaks between 1 pm and 3 pm.

More than 20 million, or 40 percent, of visitors have made the journey to the Expo by ferry, according to Shanghai Maritime Safety Administration (MSA).

"Around 1.5 million tourists are expected to travel to the Expo Garden by ferry during the seven-day national holiday period," said Xie Kaiyun, executive director of the traffic administration's Expo division.

It is placing the local maritime management under tremendous pressure. Along the 7.2-km stretch of the Huangpu River that weaves through downtown Shanghai, 150 journeys by Expo passenger ferries must navigate the waterway where 653 ships pass every day.

To manage the situation, from April 1 the city's MSA required all ships that pass down the river to be equipped with an automatic identification system, which functions like a global positioning system on a car.

On Oct 1, China National Pavilion Day, security will be raised on the river, where ships containing dangerous goods or weighing over 5,000 tons will be prohibited from using the channel.

The strict regulations have bolstered security along the Expo's waterway, along with seven patrol boats and 108 officers sharing duties 24 hours a day.

"In addition to taking security into account, we have to make sure the waterway can be used to transport coal, electricity and oil supplies from Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, the two main neighboring provinces of Shanghai,"said Xie.

The security measures will be carried out along all the waterways across Shanghai, Zhejiang and Jiangsu provinces, so that all ships that sail into Shanghai pass through security checks.