When forced to stand on a packed Nanjing Metro, have you ever wondered as to how many people are having the same experience? Which line on our city’s metro system is the busiest? And which was perhaps not worth building?
The numbers of course vary daily. And sometimes quite dramatically. Guess what causes that. Weekends and COVID.
Nevertheless, The Nanjinger today presents numbers as to the ridership of the Nanjing Metro for yesterday, 18 October. Interested readers may find such information released daily on the Nanjing Metro’s Weibo account (南京地铁).
So for the record, the Nanjing Metro yesterday transported a total of 2,064,000 people to their respective destinations.
Given that it is the only line to traverse Xinjiekou, Gulou, Nanjing Railway Station and Nanjing South Railway Station, it should not come as a surprise that Line 1 tops the list. Nanjing Metro Line 1 yesterday carried 569,000 passengers.
In second place, fittingly, is Line 2. Again hardly surprising as the only other line to pass through Xinjiekou. Line 2 also runs under the city’s principal thoroughfare that is Zhongshan Dong Lu and links downtown with far-flung Xianlin in Qixia District. Line 2 yesterday transported 512,000 passengers.
Next up, and again largely because of its links to our city’s two railway hubs and the fact it passes through Confucius Temple, is Line 3, which yesterday speeded 458,000 people on their way.
The rest of the Nanjing Metro system pales into insignificance to the top three.
As our city’s other east-west link, the numbering of Line 4 also matches its placing on our chart of yesterday’s most-frequented of Nanjing’s metro lines, carrying 158,000 fare payers.
Then at number 5 is Nanjing’s first metro line to traverse the Yangtze River; Line 10 which brings people from Pukou to connect with the rest of the network at Yuantong and Andemen. Nanjing Metro Line 1 yesterday carried 147,000 passengers.
Then we start getting out to the sticks, with the links to Nanjing’s more rural areas, the so-called provincial lines, prefixed “S” for “Sheng” or “Province”; “省”.
Topping that list, Line S8, which was built to serve distant Luhe District and take spectators and competitors to the sailing contests during the 2014 Youth Olympics, yesterday took 75,000 people to their destinations.
Line S3 is at number 7 in yesterday’s placings. Serving our city’s far southwest, Line S3 carried 58,000 people yesterday.
Next, our city’s link with Nanjing Lukou International Airport and beyond. Metro Line S1, out of Nanjing South Railway Station turning into Line S3 after the Airport stop, took 40,000 people where they wanted to go yesterday.
At number 9, Nanjing’s second-least used metro line is the last complete line to be opened. Serving Jurong in Zhenjiang City out of Maqun, Line S6 managed to yesterday carry only 40,000 passengers.
And at number 10, only one line remains. That would be the link out to far-flung Gaochun District in southern Nanjing. As the least-used line on the Nanjing Metro network, Line S9 only saw 8,000 people on its trains yesterday.
In reference to S9, we earlier used the phrase, “perhaps not worth building”. But only perhaps. For Line S9 traverses Shiju Lake, the view from which has turned out to be the Nanjing Metro system’s most-Instagrammed scene. Worth having.