China to have subway fire brigade
2012-05-11 13:37:13Police here will set up China’s first subway fire brigade to better ensure the safety of subway lines that millions use each day.
The brigade will be responsible for supervising, checking and eliminating fire hazards in Beijing’s 15 subway lines, conducting emergency rescue and fire-fighting missions.
The fire-fighting responsibilities of the subway lines are currently shouldered by the fire brigade of each district, depending on the location of the fire.
Beijing has 15 subways covering a length of 372 km. The highest number of daily subway riders has been 7.6 million.
For instance, about 80 percent of equipment that make integrated circuit chips were imported, according to previous media reports.
The nation has called for more investment and innovation to boost independent manufacturing. The plan revealed that in 2010, the nation's rail traffic equipment producers put nearly four percent of their sales revenue into research and development of new technologies.
The plan says that the nation's rail traffic will boom in coming five to 10 years with a large demand for various equipments. It estimates that the nation will consume more than 1,000 electric multiple units and about 5,000 locomotives from 2011 to 2015.
In recent years, urban rail systems have expanded fast across China as stifling pollution and traffic congestion has become a development bottleneck of the world's second largest economy.
By the end of 2010, 13 cities opened 49 railways with a mileage of 1,425.5 kilometers. The lines are sprawling. China now tops the world in the construction of urban railways, with an average annual new mileage of 270 kilometers.
By 2015, the nation's urban rail system will have a total length of more than 2,700 kilometers, the plan says.
Meanwhile, overseas demand was forecast to grow as many countries are also building new lines or upgrading old ones.
The global rail traffic equipment market will grow by 3 percent on average each year by 2015, with an annual demand averaging more than 100 billion euros ($130 billion), the plan says, citing forecasts of the Association of the European Rail Industry.
In the five-year plan, the ministry predicted that the industry's annual sales value will exceed 400 billion yuan ($63 billion) every year and investment by backbone enterprises in research and development will exceed 5 percent of their annual sales by 2015.
By 2020, the industry's annual sales value would exceed 650 billion yuan and investment in research and development would exceed 6 percent of annual sales, it said.