How roads are built in China technology. Modern road laying technologies in China, Europe and Russia

They say that China will rule the world, whether this is so, I still can’t answer for sure, but not everyone knows that in 10 days in China they build as many roads as were built in Russia in the whole of 2008.

In China, roads are treated as an important tool for strengthening statehood, so the problem is given great attention. The pace of construction reaches 30 thousand kilometers multi-lane highways per year, and its technologies (laying the base of the canvas from concrete slabs and covering it with asphalt) ensure operation in 20-25 years.

Cost of 1 kilometer four lane freeway:

China - $2.9 million
Brazil - $3.6 million
Russia - $12.9 million (highway Moscow - St. Petersburg from 15th to 58th km - $134 million; Fourth ring of Moscow - about $400 million)

In China, the total length of the road network is 1.9 million km, of which 133 thousand km are toll roads. In 2007, the length of the network of toll highways in China amounted to 53.6 thousand km. By 2020, it is predicted that the length of the Chinese road network will increase to 3 million km, of which 85 thousand km will be toll highways.

The Chinese do not nothing supernatural- they take into account the growth rate of the welfare of citizens, the increase in the number of cars and the growth in freight traffic. As for the low cost of their roads, it is due to the cheapness of labor and materials and the good organization of construction.

In China, they are guided by the costs that exist in other countries, reduce them by 2-2.5 times, and present these amounts to contractors. In Russia, money is allocated based on how much was spent in past periods.

In 10 days, as many roads are being built in China as were built in Russia in the whole of 2008.

From 2003 to 2008, 480 thousand kilometers of roads were laid in China
Total length - 1.9 million kilometers
By 2020, it should reach 3 million kilometers
China has 300,000 road bridges, 700 of which are longer than a kilometer

Most of the payment is based on the results of the work. In our country, the contractor is immediately allocated money, and any quality is accepted. The Chinese contractor insures the road from the amount received, and repairs are made not from budgetary funds, but from insurance funds. And the "corruption tax" in China is much less than in Russia.

However, to large cities often happen congestion and traffic jams. Outside the cities, roads are so busy that the speed of cars does not exceed 40 km / h. Surprisingly, on the highway and even on motorways you will meet pedestrians, horse-drawn carts, cyclists, even tractors that the locals use as regular transport. All this interference forces Chinese drivers to use the horn endlessly.

Between 2005 and 2010, the annual investment for the national expressway network is US$17–18 billion, and from 2010 to 2020, the annual investment is estimated at approximately US$12 billion.

In 2007, 8.3 thousand km of new toll highways were built in China, in 2008 it is planned to introduce another 6 thousand km of toll highways and bring their total length to almost 60 thousand km.

For comparison, there are practically no motorways and express roads in the Russian Federation at present. For the future to In 2020, it is planned to build only 3 thousand km of toll highways in the Russian Federation.

In China, as a result of a long-term construction program national expressway system a network of toll highways will be created, covering a region with a population of one billion people. China's expressway system is called the "7-9-18 Network", according to the number of highways:

7 lines radiating from Beijing;
9 lines directed from north to south;
18 lines directed from east to west;
5 ring lines and more than 30 connecting roads.

There are two types of toll roads in China:

« government”, which are built at the expense of loans provided to the Government of the PRC by various banks. Such roads are operated as toll roads for 15 years, and then, after the return of loans, they must be transferred to free ones;
“commercial”, which are built at the expense of own and borrowed funds of corporations, the term of paid operation of such roads is 25 years.

China's toll road tolls range from 4.2 US cents per 1 km to 10 US cents per 1 km for cars. For trucks, the tariffs are comparable to the amount of fees established, for example, in Germany - 0.12–0.21 dollars per 1 km. In order to get from Beijing to Fuzhou (in the southeast of China), you will have to pay about 1,600 yuan for a car, which is almost the same as the cost of an air ticket to the same direction.

Well, we can only dream of such a transport system as in China, or ...

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The article introduces China's achievements in railway construction over the past 15 years. The results of the technical re-equipment and reconstruction of old roads, the implementation of the ambitious project of the national network of high-speed highways, the unique experience of building the highest mountain railway to Tibet are described. The problems of development and operation of highways, their engineering protection are considered.

Today's China is a unique phenomenon among the major states of the world, markedly out of the ordinary. If the global trend is stabilization and even a slight decrease in the total length of railways, then in China there is now a rapid, or rather explosive, development of the railway transport infrastructure. And not just development, but also the creation of whole new transport subsystems.

In 2002, the length of the country's railways was less than 60 thousand km, in 2014 it already reached 103 thousand km. At the turn of 2012-2013, China also came out on top in the electrification of trunk lines, ahead of the former leader, Russia. Dramatically increased the average speed on conventional - slow - highways, where in 1997-2014. there were about eight systematic increases in the permitted sectional speeds. Railway lines in outlying provinces are also being built in a forced manner, increasing the country's transport connectivity. A unique project has been implemented for laying a high-mountain railway line to previously isolated Tibet - the so-called Qinghai-Tibet Railway, half of the length of which runs at an altitude of over 3 km.

The enormous amount of road construction has made China a leader in the construction of artificial structures: over the past 15 years (2000-2014), such grandiose objects have been built there, such as the Danyang-Kushan viaduct 164.8 km long, the Tianjin viaduct 113.7 km long, several tunnels over 10 km long, two sea ferry crossings, several dozen bridges over large rivers. In this area, the Chinese have also accumulated considerable and valuable experience.

It must be said right away that such an accelerated development of the transport infrastructure in the country is not a chaotic process, but represents the implementation of quite specific plans, approved and corrected approximately once every five years at the next CPC congresses. Financing of these projects is carried out mainly centrally, through the issuance of state obligations (bonds), and the main burden is placed on state-controlled joint-stock companies.

One of the main elements of the planned development of railways is the plan to build a network of dedicated (separate from the regular network) high-speed lines, HSR. It was named "Plan 4+4" because of its geographic configuration.

Multi-level connection of low-speed lines to the main HSR (Nanjing)

Ambitious "Plan 4 + 4"

The 4+4 Plan was approved in 2004 as China's first high-speed rail development program. Basically, it was originally a system of four vertical (from north to south) and four horizontal (from east to west) lines. Later, it was supplemented with new branches and connecting lines, but the frame of the highways looked exactly like that.

What was supposed to be built according to this ambitious plan?

Vertical highways (meridional) should:

Connect the capital of the country with northern Manchuria: the Beijing-Harbin line with a branch line to the Kwantung Peninsula to the port of Dalian.
Connect the two main cities of China: Beijing and Shanghai, plus a parallel highway closer to the East China Sea - Tianjin-Shenyang.
To lay a highway to the South along the shortest route: Beijing-Wuhan-Guangzhou with the prospect of extending to Shenzhen and Hong Kong.
Connect all economically active southern provinces from Shanghai via Ningbo and Fuzhou to Shenzhen with a coastal high-speed line, where it connected with the meridional axis No. 3.

Horizontal highways (latitudinal) should:

Connect the port of Qingdao with the inland industrial center of Taiyuan through the Beijing Industrial Region.
Connect the Yellow River Valley with the remote western mountainous Xinjiang - Xuzhou-Lanzhou-Urumqi (the longest and strategically important).
Lay a through line along the Yangtze Valley and its industrial centers: from the port of Shanghai through the megacities of Wuhan and Chongqing to Chengdu.
Lay a line to the mountainous regions of southwest China, adjacent to the countries of Southeast Asia: from the port of Shanghai through Changsha to the capital of Yunnan Province, Kunming.

Thus, China would extend its "high-speed tentacles" to almost all areas of the country, and the lines would allow a passenger (businessman, tourist, civil servant) to reach any point within this configuration in less than 12 hours. The unit of measurement was precisely the hours of travel to any point, everything was calculated in them. For example, from Beijing to Shanghai, the average travel time was reduced from 14 to 5 hours, from Harbin to Beijing from 15 to 5.5 hours, etc.

The construction of such a network made it possible to significantly accelerate economic activity in China, to involve new layers of the hitherto inactive population from the hinterland into the economy, and to promote the formation of new enterprises in various industries. These factors were discussed in some detail in an article by Zhu Ying in Kommersant (for details, see http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/2602194).

Reconstruction and technical re-equipment of conventional lines

But not only the construction of the HSR network was supposed to transform the railways of the Celestial Empire. Other processes were going on in parallel:

Construction of new lines of the usual type (cargo-passenger universal), mainly in remote and outlying areas.
Comprehensive reconstruction of the main main corridors of the country in order to increase their throughput and section speeds, which also reduced the travel time.
Electrification of highways in order to increase their capacity and average weight of trains, as well as improve the environmental situation, which is extremely important for this country.

In 2013, China overtook Russia in terms of the length of electrified lines and came out on top in the world (48 thousand km, now more). This happened after the commissioning of the Harbin-Dalian high-speed railway. Electrification there began only in 1958, and it took China a little more than half a century to achieve the world championship in the length of electrified railways.

In the "zero" two sea ferry railway crossings were put into operation: through the Qunzhou Strait (connection of the mainland and Hainan Island in Haikou, length 33 km) and through the Bohai Strait between the ports of Yantai (Shandong Province) and Dalian (Liaoning) 57 km long. In addition, large tunnels were built, comparable to Severomuysky in Russia, such as Qinglinsky (18.5 km, on the new Xian-Ankang line), Dayaoshansky (14.4 km, on the Hengyang-Guangzhou line). More than a dozen tunnels with a length of 5 to 10 km were built.

Since 1997, a comprehensive reconstruction of the main highways of the country and technical re-equipment of the rolling stock fleet have been consistently carried out. This process was multifaceted and included many related processes. On its components, I believe, it is worth dwelling in more detail.

Development and implementation of high-speed rolling stock. This was the first major event in the overall rearmament sequence. In a fairly short time (7–8 years), by the beginning of the 2000s, several new series of locomotives and wagons were developed and tested, designed to move along existing lines at speeds up to 160–200 km/h. For example, electric locomotives of the SS7D and SS9 series, diesel locomotives of the DF4 series, passenger cars of the 25K family of various classes, including double-deck ones.

Then, in the early 2000s, it was the turn to modernize the basic infrastructure on the main trunk corridors, involving large capital expenditures that were impossible in the conditions of the 1990s. It included the following activities:

laying of jointless rail lashes and elimination of short rails with a large number of joints;
replacement of railroad switches with high-speed ones;
re-laying of tracks in order to eliminate curves of a small radius, where the movement of trains at high speed was unacceptable;
softening the overall track profile to reduce the number of sections with steep ascents and descents;
replacement of old wooden sleepers with reinforced concrete ones;
reconstruction of overpasses and small bridges;
the introduction of soil reinforcement in railway construction and the transition from passive retention to active strengthening of the track structure (driving rods, reinforcing embankments using geotextiles or geogrids);
installation of protective fences and elimination of crossings with parallel construction of road crossings at different levels;
improvement of the locomotive signaling system and the widespread introduction of automatic blocking.

An important aspect of the work to increase speeds was to ensure the safety of train traffic at a high level.

And here, too, multifaceted engineering solutions were required: it was necessary to ensure constant monitoring of the state of technical means, regardless of their location, and the information necessary for making a decision had to come immediately at any time. Through trial and error, Chinese railroad workers came up with the cross-use of the three monitoring systems.

The floor system measures the transverse forces in the interaction of wheels and rails during the passage of the train. At the same time, data is collected synchronously from vibration, displacement and speed sensors, as well as their analysis in real time. The system equipment could be installed at any critical point on the track, and an alarm signal could be received at the train control center within 10 seconds.

The mobile system (based on the GJ-4 high-speed track inspection car) is based on the use of equipment that uses inertial orientation technologies and semiconductor laser measurements in combination with automatic binding to a specific location. The main parameters of the track can be measured and recorded while the car is moving at a speed of up to 160 km/h.

The critical track point monitoring system (based on the track stiffness measuring car) allows measuring and recording the track stiffness value at approaches to bridges and at transition sections, crossings, in areas of turnouts and other critical places when driving at speeds up to 40 km/h . The use of such a car makes it possible to control the state of critical points of highways, to identify possible problems at an early stage and to choose the right type of track superstructure during its future reconstruction.

As you can see, the course of implementation of the multi-stage program to increase the speed of movement has put China's railways into the ranks of the leaders. Now, on the main corridors between the largest economic centers of the country, there is a mixed movement of high-speed passenger (up to 160 km / h) and heavy freight trains (up to 100 km / h and 5000 tons of train weight) on the same intensively operated hauls. That in itself is an extraordinary achievement.

The fastest HSR train Beijing-Shanghai G1 travels 1318 km in 4 hours 45 minutes

Beginning and active stage of implementation of the 4+4 Plan

The first sign of the "4 + 4 Plan" was a rather short road (117 km), built between the two largest, closely located agglomerations - the Beijing Capital and Tianjin, located on the shores of the Bohai Bay. The Beijing-Tianjin intercity railway was built for the 2008 Olympic Games and was characterized by all the main features of a dedicated high-speed line, which will later become familiar on other similar lines:

a route completely separate from ordinary lines, closed with protective fences or placed on overpasses at the intersections of some objects;
without single-level intersections with other lines and roads on the way;
specialization - it carries out only high-speed passenger traffic without conventional trains, and even more so freight ones;
under it, a separate new terminal station was built in Beijing (South Station) and special tracks were allocated at the Tianjin Main Station.

CRH3 trains were put on the line, reaching speeds of up to 330 km / h (later the speed was reduced to 300). The average trip in time has been reduced by a factor of three - from the previous one and a half hours to 28 minutes. 60 pairs of trains (!) plus 2 track-measuring trains now run along it a day. Trains do not run at night.

After the opening of this first small line, a curious pattern was revealed: high-speed communication includes in the process of transport exchange new segments of the population who had not previously regularly traveled outside their cities (2007 - 8.3 million people, in the first year of the road's existence - 18.7 million ). The increase in passengers was noticeably higher than the total number of passengers on the railway and buses a year and a half earlier.

In parallel with the commissioning of the first line and the testing of the main solutions in real operation, the accelerated construction of other, longer main high-speed lines began. First of all, from Beijing to the north - to Manchuria, to the south - to Wuhan and Guangzhou, and also to the southeast - to the largest metropolis of the country, Shanghai.

The 1318 km Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line after construction (April 2008–November 2010) overturned another postulate of transport communication, which was previously considered unshakable: that high-speed lines are profitable and attract passengers at distances from 300 to 1000 km, and with a length of more than 1000 km, a mass passenger begins to prefer aviation.

This turned out to be completely different: despite the preservation of the usual railway line to Shanghai and the presence of intensive air and bus traffic, tens of millions of people moved to this line, plus several million “newbies” appeared who had not previously traveled outside their regions. Travel time from the capital to Shanghai by train has been reduced from 12-14 hours to 5 or even 4 hours and 45 minutes. For half a year after the opening (2011), the line transported 24.5 million people, and 4 years later (2015) it transported 56.3 million people for the first half of the year.

During the construction of the line, numerous artificial structures were also built - 244 bridges, several long overpass viaducts (including the world's largest Danyang-Kunshan viaduct 165 km long), 22 tunnels with a total length of 16 km. Most of this highway (about 80% of the length) was built using ballastless technology. Many innovations that are now familiar to Chinese high-speed lines were tested on it.

The line is very popular: now an average of 290 (!) trains with different terminal stations run on it daily. Trains depart from Beijing to Shanghai approximately every 15 minutes. Along it there are 11 cities with a population of over 1 million people, which also generate their own passenger traffic. Thanks to its discovery, the interaction between the economic zone of the Bohai Bay and the coastal zone of the Yangtze Delta has significantly intensified.

In 2010–2015 other lines were also built according to the 4 + 4 Plan (see Fig. 3). Of the significant milestones in the implementation of this plan, it is worth mentioning the following projects:

The line to Manchuria and the Kwantung Peninsula (Beijing / Dalian-Shenyang-Harbin), which was built partly in cold areas where temperatures drop to -40 0C in winter and special measures are required to compensate for the temperature impact on the track. There, high-speed trains run at different seasonal speeds (up to 300 km/h in summer, up to 200 km/h in winter). For this line, CRH380B type trains have been developed adapted to the movement in cold regions.

The longest HSR line in the world to the south (Beijing-Guangzhou-Shenzhen) is more than 2,300 km long, introduced at the end of December 2012. A direct high-speed train of category G from Beijing to Guangzhou covers 2,300 km in 8.5–9 hours. By the way, this distance is almost equivalent to the Moscow–Omsk distance.

HSR along the Yangtze Valley (Shanghai-Wuhan-Chongqing-Chengdu, length about 2100 km), laid in difficult mountainous areas with dozens of tunnels and high-water bridges across the Yangtze and other large rivers. Not completed in one section (Chongqing-Wanzhou), completion expected in 2015

The Hainan high-speed semicircle (Sanya-Haikou HSR, about 300 km long) was built in the tropics with high humidity and partly mountainous terrain. The line is isolated from the main HSR network.

The implementation of the plan continues before our eyes, and every six months there are reports about the commissioning of some new high-speed sections - powerful building columns created for the project do not stand idle.

Growth problems and the 2011 crisis

Like any large complex project with many stages, the "4 + 4 Plan" did not escape the crisis phenomena of network growth, a kind of "childhood illness". During the accelerated construction of new lines after the first outstanding successes (“Olympic Line” to Tianjin - 2008, the Beijing-Shanghai High-Speed Line with grandiose artificial structures - 2010), Chinese railways experienced “dizziness from success”.

The speed of traffic on the newly commissioned lines reached 340-350 km/h, attention to traffic safety for the sake of reducing the travel time was somewhat weakened, the algorithms for checking the condition of the lines were not improved, and the reckoning was not long in coming.

On July 23, 2011, two trains traveling along the Shanghai–Fuzhou Highway Coastal Line collided on an overpass in the suburbs of Wenzhou, Zhejiang Province. One train entered the tail of the second at a speed of about 100 km/h. Both trains derailed and several carriages fell off the overpass. 40 people died and 192 were injured, for a total of about 1,600 people on both trains at the time of the crash. The crash was called the "Zhejiang catastrophe" and caused a great resonance in society; Chinese officials and experts were sharply criticized.

This emergency had a "cold shower" effect on the initial euphoria of the introduction of the HSR. At first, in the course of the investigation, the railway workers tried to attribute the blame to natural factors (lightning during a severe thunderstorm did indeed strike a signaling device on the line, which was disabled, turning off the auto-lock on this block section). However, in the course of further investigation, already under the control of the PRC government, a serious impact of the human factor was also revealed, namely, the fuzzy organization of traffic control, the poor quality of dispatch control and poor control over signaling equipment.

After this incident, the construction of high-speed railways in China was temporarily (though not for long) suspended while the causes of the accident were investigated. The speed limit was lowered everywhere: on the 1st class lines (G) - from 350 to 300 km / h, and on the 2nd class lines (C and D) - from 230-250 to 200-220 km / h. The traffic schedule was promptly revised, it introduced small reserves of time for being late and surge. Starting from the end of 2011, drivers were allowed to reach speeds of 310 km/h in permitted sections only if they deviated from the schedule by more than 10 minutes, and after entering the schedule, the limit for normal traffic remained at 300 km/h. In case of deviation from these standards, both the drivers and site managers were subjected to large fines. The responsibility of dispatchers for compliance with the schedule has been tightened. New standards have been developed and implemented, establishing a larger axial distance between the tracks and a higher radius of curvature and horizontal and vertical alignments.

In addition, the Zhejiang disaster led to numerous resignations and the final fall of the "architect of the Chinese high-speed lines" - Minister of Railways Liu Zhijun. He was detained even before the accident on charges of corruption, but after it new serious episodes were added to his case. He was accused of illegally raising operating speed limits and squeezing railroad construction schedules that affected traffic safety.

Curiously, Minister Liu (2003-2011), who was arrested in 2011, is actually the architect of the 4+4 Plan and the engine behind the modernization of China's railways. Colossal sums flowed through him - 80 billion dollars a year; during his tenure, powerful engineering companies were created and gained strength, which are now carrying out the process of modernizing the railways of the Middle Kingdom.

And by mid-2011, with its vigorous “no brakes” policy, with an emphasis on records, it led the rapidly growing system of high-speed lines to the most significant crisis. The Zhejiang disaster predetermined the final downfall of Liu: in May 2012 he was expelled from the party, in June 2013 he went to trial, in the fall of 2013 he was sentenced to capital punishment with a two-year suspension of execution.

These are far from all the problems of China's high-speed railways. Too high fares, the accumulation of debts of the Ministry of Railways (now reformed and divided into two parts) and the financial component of this colossal construction are criticized. Corruption is also a problem, which is periodically revealed in this branched economy, through which huge sums of money flow. However, these questions lie outside the scope of this article.

Unique Project: Qinghai-Tibet Railway

Speaking about China's experience in the reconstruction and construction of conventional railways, one cannot fail to mention the unique railway to Tibet, built in just 5 years (2001-2006). The highway began to be built from the city of Xining under Mao, in 1974, however, construction to the station. Golmud (on the Tibetan Plateau) took about 10 years with the help of the army and prisoners. The first 814 km were opened for operation in 1984.

The second, decisive and most difficult, section (1142 km to Lhasa) began to be built after the death of Deng Xiaoping, in 2001. The railway from Golmud rose from a height of 2800 m to the Tang-La pass (5072 m!) Lhasa (3642 m). Approximately 20 thousand workers built the highway simultaneously from two end points and coped with the task in just five years. The construction cost amounted to about 3.7 billion dollars, which is about 6 times cheaper than the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed line mentioned earlier.

There are 45 stations on the mountainous section of the highway from Golmud, 38 of which are automatic, without permanent personnel.

After the completion of construction on this road, several railway construction records were set at once:

the highest mountain railway tunnel in the world - Fenghuoshan, height above sea level 4900 m;
the highest railway station in the world - Thang La, 5068 m above sea level;
the highest point of the highway - 5072 m.

Due to the exceptional height of the route, a special rolling stock was developed for this road. According to the technologies of the General Electric Corporation, diesel locomotives NJ2 with a capacity of 5100 hp were built. s., adapted for work in the highlands. Not only locomotives, but the cars for this line are also built using a special technology - they are actually hermetically isolated from the environment, oxygen pressure is maintained from the inside, close to standard. Also, to prevent altitude sickness, each seat in the car is equipped with individual oxygen tubes. The tinted windows of the carriages have a special coating against excessive solar radiation.

During construction, there were many serious difficulties, including permafrost (about a quarter of the length of the highway). Disturbance of the permafrost layer can lead to the melting of glacial formations, which, in turn, potentially leads to the formation of failures, causing deformation and destruction of the track.

However, engineers found a solution to this set of problems: when laying the canvas and building bridges in this permafrost zone, special technologies were used. The rails are laid on an embankment of cobblestones of a certain size, covered with a layer of sand. The canvas cushion has a ventilation layer: the embankment is pierced through with a system of pipes to ensure ventilation, and its slopes are covered with a metal deck that reflects sunlight and thereby prevents it from heating.

On separate sections of the route, special wells filled with liquid nitrogen are provided. They actually freeze the foundation of the canvas, preventing the heating of the upper permafrost layer and its thawing. Using this technology, the canvas was laid on a section of 111 km. The speed limit in this area is 100 km/h.

To compensate for elevation differences in the construction areas, a significant part of the highway was laid along flyovers. In total, 675 bridges were built along the entire route. The overpasses are built on piles, the depth of which, even in the conditions of thawing of the upper layer of permafrost, prevents a negative impact on the stability of the structure. An important advantage of flyover sites is that they do not prevent the free migration of unique species of local animals.

The annual passenger traffic of the line increased from 6.5 million people in 2006 to 11 million people in 2012, and the annual cargo turnover accordingly increased from 25 million tons to 56 million tons. Over the decade, it became clear that this highway has decisively accelerated the economic development of Tibet and the neighboring province of Qinghai, and also increased their tourist importance. The cost of delivering goods to Tibet has also become significantly cheaper.

In 2014, an extension of the line from Lhasa to Shigatse (the nearest city to Everest, about 120 km) was opened, 253 km long.

Dedicated high-speed train station Beijing South (built in 2008)

Conclusion

China over the past decade has made tremendous progress in rail transport technology, reconstructed and equipped conventional railways with new technology, built from scratch the world's largest high-speed rail system (now more than 16 thousand km), and has accumulated tremendous experience in operating high-speed express trains despite crises and growth problems. The construction of new lines and further electrification of existing ones are underway. Over 10 years, the total length of the railway network has grown from 60,000 km (2004) to 103,000 km (2014).

In 2012, China's largest center for the development and production of high-speed passenger trains, created by CNR Corporation, was launched in Changchun. The production site (290 thousand km2) has become the largest in terms of scale, advanced equipment and a fully equipped production base in the world. This center is capable of producing annually: 500 wagons for conventional passenger trains, 100 new generation HSR trains (CRH380A), 800–1000 HSR wagons, 1200 wagons for intercity express trains.

Railway management reform is underway: in March 2013, the Ministry of Railways of the People's Republic of China was divided into an administrative (Ministry of Transportation) and a commercial (China General Railway Corporation) structure.

How effective this measure will be remains to be seen. But Chinese railroad workers have picked up a colossal pace and are confidently looking forward - the growth of railway infrastructure, apparently, will continue for quite a long time. And you can learn a lot from them.

At this rate, new roads are being built in China today. What's stopping us?

The records set by the Chinese for the construction of bridges and roads are impressive. The other day they paved a junction for a new railway station in 9 hours.

1.5 hours - and the bridge is ready

1,500 workers and 23 excavators overnight connected 3 major railway lines to the Nanlong New Line in southern China. At the same time, they not only paved the road, but also installed traffic lights and other means of control along it. As Zhang Daosong, deputy head of the Tiesiju Civil Engineering group, the main builder of railways in China, explained, the project was completed in record time due to the fact that the workers were organized into 7 teams that simultaneously performed various tasks. But it is obvious that the secret of Chinese success is not only in smart management.

It's also about technology. So, in 2016, the Chinese deployed two bridges 100 meters long by 90 degrees in 1.5 hours. Huge structures were assembled along the railway track, and then installed perpendicularly on prepared supports. At the same time, the busy highway under the railway tracks did not overlap - everything happened right above the cars.

In 2015, the Chinese dismantled the old and assembled a new 6-lane road bridge in Beijing in 43 hours. During this time, they also managed to apply markings. For the new surface of the bridge, a 1300-ton structure was needed, which was transported already finished. As the representative of the contractor explained, a new technology of "integrative replacement" was used. Reconstruction in the usual way would have taken at least 2 months, but a key traffic intersection in the northeast of Beijing, connecting the 3rd Ring Road, the expressway to the airport and Route 101, could not be blocked for so long.

They build in a week what we build in a year

750 m per hour - with such a speed, new roads are being built in the Celestial Empire today. All expressways were built in the last 20 years! How did the "Chinese road miracle" happen and why can't we learn from this experience?

Population explosion or hoax? How many Chinese actually are “In terms of construction, China has long overtaken not only us, but the whole world,” Pavel Goryachkin, president of the Union of Estimators, explained to AiF. - In terms of production of building materials, it is simply out of competition, even the Americans are far behind. A simple example: we produce 79-80 million tons of cement per year, and the Chinese - more than 1 billion tons! This is a serious indicator, especially since they do not export cement. They build as many roads in a week as we do in a year. We used to laugh at Chinese fakes, and they, like a sponge, absorb all new technologies. Now we are not talking about manual labor, when a million Chinese were rounded up and they dug some kind of pit with shovels. Not! We are talking about high-tech construction. Today, the Chinese produce on their territory almost the entire range of necessary construction machinery and equipment. Chinese engineers study at the best universities in the world, train at the best construction sites, and this is supported by the state in every possible way. They understand that construction is one of the locomotives of the economy, and therefore they invest. The Chinese are very hardworking and talented people. Technological solutions show how they are progressing.
And even with the amount of money that we pump into our construction projects, for some reason we can’t work like that. Of course, we can do something: we have modern equipment, a developed market for building materials, and engineers, but ... In China, construction is a priority for the state, while in our country, over the past two years, we, builders, have heard only threats and insults from officials: they say, we do not need shared construction, all developers are thieves and crooks. Rosstat records a decrease in the volume of produced building materials by 10%. According to the Supreme Arbitration Court, in terms of the number of bankruptcies, builders are in the forefront. How can the industry develop here?!”

Russian President Vladimir Putin and President of the People's Republic of China Xi Jinping. We add that in China, government and regional officials are planning how the transport network should grow - taking into account the development of the economy, the direction of freight and passenger traffic, and the growth in the number of cars. A lot of money is allocated for this. But, although the cost of 1 km of a highway in our countries is approximately comparable, in the Celestial Empire they build many times faster and better - the agreed service life of a highway there is 25 years.
The only good news is that our builders already have joint projects with the Chinese. The largest road-building corporations of the Celestial Empire want to invest in Russia, which means that we need to learn and adopt their experience. And not only to engineers and builders, but also to managers.

750 meters per hour - with such a speed, new roads are being built in China today. How did the “Chinese road miracle” happen and how can the experience of our neighbors help us?

FROM NOWHERE

Half a century ago, China was one of the most backward countries in terms of the length of paved roads. The PRC government believed that there were more important tasks. The situation began to change in the 1980s, when it was understood that without modern road infrastructure it is impossible to continue. There was even a slogan: "If we want to get rich, we must first build roads." At this time, the government adopted the first plan for the creation of a network of state expressways and the corresponding quality standards were developed. We decided on the sources of financing for the construction (funds from the state budget, local budgets, road maintenance fees, additional duties when buying a car, excise taxes on fuel). Since 1985, all this has been formalized by separate laws (many organizational problems have not been resolved in our country to this day). At the same time, the state allowed the introduction of tolls on high-class highways to return construction loans.

The first high-speed road, Shanghai - Jiading (18.5 km), was opened in 1988, after which the laying of such routes rushed on the rise. Already in the first decade, China has achieved such results in road construction that it took Europe and the United States more than half a century! The construction of highways raised the level of all road construction, allowed the backward industry, where the main means of production were a shovel, a wheelbarrow, a hand roller and millions of low-paid workers, to reach a modern level. Serious manufacturers of road equipment appeared.

The construction of high-speed roads continues now, and at the same fantastic pace. By the beginning of the 21st century, their length exceeded 10 thousand kilometers. In 2002 - already 20 thousand, and in 2008 - 60 thousand kilometers! By the end of 2013, the total length of roads exceeded 4.1 million kilometers, including 104.5 thousand expressways. According to the Transport Development Program for the 12th Five-Year Plan (2011-2015), a network of high-speed roads will be formed in China in the coming years, which will connect all regions and almost all cities with a population of over 200,000 people. Already today there are 300,000 bridges in China (a thousand of them are more than a kilometer long). By the number of modern roads, the country has taken the second place in the world, and all the highways were built in 20 years!

The whole of China is covered by a network of high-speed toll roads, some of which do not have a free alternative. Drivers pay, but do not complain: after all, you can quickly get to anywhere in the country!

SECRET TECHNOLOGIES

The Chinese have not invented anything new. Government and regional institutions are planning how the transport network should grow - taking into account the development of the economy, the direction of freight and passenger traffic, and the growth in the number of cars. There is a lot of money in the country, including free money that can be spent on creating a modern infrastructure. Rhetorical question: why didn't they do this in Russia when the country was literally flooded with petrodollars? Between 2005 and 2010, China's national expressway network was invested $17-18 billion a year, and now that the main arteries are in operation, they are spending $12 billion a year.

The federal or local authorities have full control over the construction, but it is usually carried out at the expense of the contractor. And the state or the government of the region will pay him only after all the work has been completed, and it is precisely within the framework of the amount that is prescribed in the contract. High rates are a direct result of such a system: builders want to return the money invested as quickly as possible. At the same time, not at the expense of quality: the agreed service life of roads, as a rule, is at least 25 years.

MONEY ON THE TABLE

Most roads in China are free. There are also two types of toll roads: state (built at the expense of the budget) and commercial (built at the expense of own or borrowed funds of companies). For a simple motorist, there is no difference between them, but according to the law, a state road should become free after 15 years of operation, and a commercial one after 25 years. The fee for cars is from 0.25 to 0.6 yuan (1.3-3.3 rubles) per 1 km, depending on the time of day, season, etc. For trucks - from 3 to 7 rubles, which is not much different from European tariffs. But there are two differences from Europe or neighboring Japan. First, in cities, all roads are free, even if they are futuristic six-level interchanges, like in Shanghai. And in the same Tokyo, entry to the multi-level city freeway is paid. Secondly, there is not always a free alternative road, and in such cases a separate decision is made at the government level each time.

I have traveled a lot on Chinese roads. To be honest, there are also old, broken ones among them, especially in the north of the country. But new roads, interchanges, bridges, as well as the pace of their construction, are amazing. Sometimes the terrain is not recognizable: I remember that last year there was an open field here and there were some huts - and today there is a high-speed highway, and at the second level, and new interchanges are being built ...

The Donghai Bridge, built three years ago, impressed me the most. When you look at the map, you get the feeling that it leads nowhere and breaks off into the open sea. But it's not like that. The Shanghai port, the world's largest in terms of turnover, is located in the shallow mouth of the Yangtze River and cannot accommodate today's huge tankers and container ships. To solve this problem, a new port was built on the small island of Yanshan - just for such ships. And they connected the island to the mainland with a bridge 32.5 km long. Fantastic building! Six - eight traffic lanes, excellent coverage, lighting ... You drive as if on the high seas! So, Donghai was built in just three years! And this is not the longest bridge in China: in Shandong province there is a bridge over the Jiaozhou Bay with a length of 36.5 km. And for reference: seven of the ten longest bridges in the world are located in China.

Shanghai with a population of 20 million is quite successfully solving its transport problems. The main "secret of the company" is to build as many new roads and interchanges as possible.

BROTHERS - FOREVER?

How can we use the Chinese experience? What can be done together to defeat the first eternal Russian misfortune?

A number of joint projects are already being implemented: for example, new border crossings are being built on the Russian-Chinese border, as well as highways leading to them. It is planned to build two bridges across the Amur: Blagoveshchensk - Haihe (there is already a project) and in the Trans-Baikal Territory, near the village of Pokrovka. Both Chinese and Russian companies will work. The largest road construction corporations of the Celestial Empire are very interested in the opportunity to participate in our main infrastructure projects - the construction of the Central Ring Road in the Moscow region, the new high-speed highway Western Europe - Western China (for them this is the most important transit direction!). And the main project that at least two leading Chinese companies have set their sights on in recent months is the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait. As soon as it became known about this project, a large delegation of Chinese experts immediately arrived in Kerch. And they showed me the Donghai Bridge for a reason!

“Chinese partners would like to invest about five trillion rubles in the development of our transport infrastructure within five years, and I believe that our cooperation has very good prospects,” Russian Minister of Transport Maxim Sokolov is sure. - We have already managed to agree with partners on a number of key issues. First, Russian and Chinese companies will work together at all stages. Secondly, Chinese banks and funds are ready to invest in joint projects, and directly, in yuan and rubles. Thirdly, there is support at the highest level both from our side and from China.

The 32 km Donghai Bridge connects Shanghai to the new deep water port on Yanshan Island.

It seems that the construction of a bridge across the Kerch Strait may be the first, but a very serious joint project. Judge for yourself: in difficult conditions, it is necessary to build a bridge crossing 19 km long, which will pass along the dam through the island of Tuzla to Kerch. The Taman Peninsula, Tuzla and the Crimean coast will be connected by two spans of a two-tier combined road and rail bridge - 1.4 and 6.1 km long. And to approach the bridge, it will be necessary to build at least 40 km of roads to Taman, 8 km of highway to Kerch, 17 km of railways ... The bridge will also serve as a support for water conduits. Alas, we have no experience in building facilities of this magnitude. European companies are not helpers here - they will not go to Crimea, so as not to fall under sanctions. And the Chinese do not need to take experience: they are now building the longest bridge in the world: Macau - Hong Kong. Its length is 58 km.

By the way, on average, the construction of 1 km of a four-lane highway in China costs $2.9 million. We have about 7 million dollars, but this includes funds for the purchase of land, the transfer of communications and other expenses that add up to 40-50% of the total. So prices are comparable. But for some reason, the results are different: we build a little more than 600 km of roads a year, and in China - up to 10,000 km! True, in the PRC, up to 4% of GDP was invested in road construction, while in our country - only 1% ... So it turns out that now the total length of paved roads in China is 4.5 times more than in Russia. But even 30 years ago, the Chinese had nothing to brag about. Maybe in a few decades they will tighten the roads with us?

Watching the ups and downs of the road in our country, one cannot help but wonder, how are things going with toll roads in China? How does a country that is densely populated in the east and economically less developed in the west solve the problem of building and maintaining high-speed toll roads? And how much does it cost the state and motorists?

The Chinese toll road has a capacity of 25,000 to 100,000 vehicles per year. It has two directions of traffic with a separator, at least two lanes for each direction, entry and exit, checkpoints. Cars move at an average speed of 120 km/h. Pointers in China, as well as in Taiwan, in Korea, the USA, Canada and Japan, are green. In Hong Kong, until the 90s, blue was used, as in the UK, but was subsequently replaced by green.

In China, the construction of such roads is carried out in parallel with the construction of conventional highways. Despite the fact that the toll road turns out to be safer and 60-70% faster than the usual one, the government believes that in order to maintain social equality, it is necessary to offer a worthy alternative to all segments of the population. In addition, toll roads are only part of the overall system for the development of lagging regions in the west of the country.

Source: map.ps123.net

Industrialization and urbanization reached China relatively late. In the West, the boom in road construction came in the 30s of the 20th century. The earliest construction of such roads began in Taiwan in 1970. By 1988, there were only 100 km of high-speed highways in mainland China. In 2015, this figure reached 123,000 km. The pace of construction in 1998-2005 amounted to 4,500 km per year, today - more than 6,600 km per year. This acceleration is connected not only with new technologies, but also with the increased flow of investments. In 2013, 72.97 billion yuan was invested in toll highway projects. Every 100 million yuan invested creates 3,900 jobs.

The construction cost of 1 km of road in China is 30 million yuan. In highland areas and over the sea coast - from 40 million yuan and more. It takes about 3-5 years, sometimes up to 8 years, from the approval of the project to the commissioning of the facility. Part of the costs is paid off by tolls on the new highway, and the other part by state support. The payback period averages 8-10 years, and the operating period is 25-30 years. In the US, roads have a lifespan of up to 40 years.

In addition to investment, the state exercises antimonopoly control, work planning, deals with the legislative framework, inspection and supervision, quality control and compliance with working conditions, and also monitors compliance with cultural and ethical standards in production and during maintenance. As a rule, there is one controlling authority per province, less often - an association. Road safety is monitored by the police and traffic police, who work closely with each other. Well-established companies from the provinces of Zhejiang, Jiangsu, Shandong and Fujian enjoy the trust of government authorities.

A non-stop electronic toll system (ETC, Electronic Toll Collection) is used to collect tolls on expressways. This highly efficient system, which is an automatic barrier with a scanner that recognizes the number of passing vehicles, is used all over the world, positively influencing the speed of service on busy sections of highways and reducing the noise level in the city.

In 1995, the technology was approved for use in China, and in 1996 a special committee for its dissemination and application was established. It was decided to introduce the system gradually, so mixed payment acceptance points were equipped: a live cashier and a soulless scanner were offered to choose from. Also, as an experiment, checkpoints were built with and without a barrier, with payment immediately or after, according to the photo.

First of all, ETS was applied on popular routes in Beijing, Guangdong, Jiangsu and Sichuan provinces. The experiment showed that the technology has vulnerable software, and also provokes traffic jams and air pollution in crowded places. In addition, widespread implementation requires the restructuring of existing points. The advantages of the system include compliance with modern standards, reliability of information, practicality, consistency, scale, as well as the possibility of refinement, improvement of technology and elimination of shortcomings in the future. Today, crossing the automatic control line takes on average up to 4 seconds.

Highway on about. Hainan. Photo: Anton Zhideev

A subscription card for paying for travel on high-speed roads can be issued for a month, six months or a year, or you can pay directly from your account after the fact. In the Beijing area, travel on such a highway will cost 0.4 yuan per 1 km, at some intervals - up to 2 yuan / km. On some roads, a one-time fee is charged at the exit from the highway - from 10 to 30 yuan. The road from Beijing to Fuzhou (1898 km) by car (up to 7 seats) will cost 960 yuan. Such a payment system operates both between cities and within cities.

There is only one place in China where such a system of checkpoints has not been applied since 1991 - the island of Hainan. Here, the "highway tax" is already included in the cost of fuel, which is higher than on the mainland by almost a yuan. At the time of writing, in Xiamen, 93rd gasoline cost 5.54 yuan per liter, 97th - 5.92 yuan, and in Haikou - 6.68 and 7.08, respectively.

At first glance, it may seem that the construction of highways in China is proceeding without hitches and bureaucratic delays, and new toll systems are working with a bang. In the following publications, we will try to figure out what problems China faces in the construction of highways, and how it manages to overcome them.

Other publications about Chinese roads:

: where does revenue from toll roads go in China?