THE Shenzhen section of the Shenzhen-Daya Bay Intercity Rail will have 11 stations, which will connect with high-speed rails, Metro rails and other intercity rails, Shenzhen Metro Group has announced in an environmental impact assessment report.

The 69-kilometer section starts from the Shenzhen airport and ends at Pingshan, passing  Shiyan, Longhua and Bantian.

The east-west section links 20 Metro lines and five intercity rails between Shenzhen and other cities, including Dongguan and Huizhou, and four high-speed railways, namely Shenzhen-Maoming railway, Xiamen-Shenzhen rail, Shenzhen-Shenshan rail and Guangzhou-Shenzhen rail.

The Shenzhen-Daya Bay Intercity Rail runs 86.83 kilometers from Terminal 4 of Shenzhen Bao’an International Airport to Daya Bay Economic and Technological Development Zone in Huizhou.

The rail will deploy eight-carriage trains that operate at 160 kilometers per hour. The line will be extended to Zhongshan City in the future.

The project is expected to enhance the connectivity of the Shenzhen airport to the eastern region of the city. Currently, 28 percent of its passengers come from the city’s northern and eastern areas. The rail will cut the trip between the airport and Pingshan down to 40 minutes.

Meanwhile, Shenzhen will start construction of three intercity rails before the end of this year, which are the Shenzhen section of the Shenzhen-Daya Bay Intercity Rail, Shenzhen-Shenshan rail and Shenzhen-Huizhou rail.

The Shenzhen-Huizhou rail will extend 141.92 kilometers. The 129.41-kilometer Shenzhen-Shenshan rail will link Xili in Nanshan District in Shenzhen with the Shenshan Special Cooperation Zone, which will cut the trip between the two places to 30 minutes when it becomes operational in 2025.

Shenzhen is planning to construct five intercity rails to further connect the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, which will extend 410 kilometers in total and cost 201.8 billion yuan (US$28 billion) in investment.

Among the lines, the construction of the Shenzhen airport-Qianhai section of Guangzhou-Dongguan-Shenzhen Intercity Rail has started.(Han Ximin)