Caoqiao station of the Beijing Subway New Airport Line. (Photo/Chinanews.com)

Up to now, 39 cities in the Chinese mainland have opened urban rail transit systems, with an operating mileage of more than 5,800 kilometers.

In 2018, the passenger volume of urban rail transit reached 21.3 billion and the country ranked first in the world in terms of the number of cities with urban rail transit, the mileage of rail transit in operation and passenger volume, said Wu Chungeng, spokesman for the Ministry of Transport, at a news conference on Oct. 24.

Urban rail transit in China started late. Still, the momentum of development is strong. Wu noted that China's railway reliability, punctuality rate, departure interval, and other key operating indicators all rank top in the global statistics.

Furthermore, the operation safety of rail transit is stable and controllable on the whole, with no major operation safety accidents occurring.