Under the special circumstances of Spring Festival travel rush peak, how does the capacity of high-speed rail compare with that of traditional railways?

At present, the Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway is still in trial operation, and the trial operation period is one year. At present, the departure interval of Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway is about half an hour, which is still far from the theoretical departure interval. With the end of the trial operation period, the increase of trains and passenger flow, the transportation capacity of Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway will be gradually released.

"The Zhu Heng section can run every 2.8 minutes on average during Spring Festival travel rush" refers to the two-way departure interval. At present, the departure interval of Wuhan-Guangzhou high-speed railway under design is 3.5 minutes (with great potential), but it is one-way, that is to say, the two-way departure interval is 1.75 minutes. Due to the very high level of informatization of high-speed railway, its control mode is mainly automatic, supplemented by manual, while ordinary railway is mainly manual and supplemented by automatic, so the departure frequency of high-speed railway is incomparable to ordinary railway.

Ordinary railways are mixed passenger and freight transport, so many trains are freight trains. The separation of passenger and freight can meet different transportation requirements, and it is also a passenger dedicated line. It is generally believed that the capacity of high-speed railway is twice that of ordinary railway.

In fact, overloading is a kind of intolerance, which is definitely not what normal railway transportation wants. Just like many people have no seats on the bus, this is an unsafe operation mode, and passengers are not allowed to stand on buses in many developed countries. However, due to the shortage of transportation capacity, overloading is a last resort. The landlord must have seen overloaded trains in other countries. Many passengers sit on the roof or hang out of the car, which is absolutely not allowed in China. Similarly, with the development of society, trains without seats are not allowed. High-speed trains are not allowed to be overloaded, not only for safety reasons, but also for improving service quality.

In addition to the advantages in departure frequency, high-speed trains have great potential in transportation capacity. At present, domestic motor trains are generally grouped with eight cars or two cars with sixteen cars, while foreign trains have more than twenty cars. Double-deck high-speed trains are also an important means to improve transportation capacity.

In a word, high-speed trains greatly improve the service quality of trains, and have obvious advantages in the competition with highways and aviation, which is an inevitable trend of railway development. Once a railway is built, it will take 40 to 50 years or hundreds of years. If you want to build a new line, you must base yourself on the long-term and not repeat it at a low level. High-speed railway is the only choice for the development of railway passenger transport.