The No. 1 subway expansion project in Tianjin, the largest port city in north China, which was completed on Wednesday, will begin trial operation on March 28, 2006.

A test run was conducted on the newly completed subway tracks on Wednesday, sources from Tianjin Subway Corporation said.

Tianjin is China's second city built with a subway system. But because of low construction standards, the old subway failed to play a key role in diverting passenger flows after it was put into traffic in 1984.

The expansion project, which began in November 2002, was carried out on the basis of the outdated 7.4 km subway section. With a budget of 7.8 billion yuan (about 962 million U.S. dollars), the expanded subway is 26.2 km long and is built with 22 stops, including eight elevated open-air stops and one ground stop. Each stop is installed with automatic ticket vending machines.

A corporate spokesman predicted the expanded subway system, which connects six administrative districts from north to south, would haul 48,100 journeys an hour at most.

According to him, Tianjin will plan to build six new tracked routes in the years to come and by the year of 2050, the city will have a tracked transport network with its length totaling 154 km.

At present, the city's second and third subway projects, with a combined budget of 20 billion yuan (2.47 billion U.S. dollars), are under preparation.

Subway service is now available in Beijing, Shanghai, Nanjing, capital of east China's Jiangsu Province, as well as Guangzhou and Shenzhen, both in south China's Guangdong Province.

Source: Xinhua