After five years of rapid development, Anhui Province's total highway mileage, road network density, first-class highway mileage, and inland high-grade waterway mileage have risen to 8th, 6th, 9th, and 8th in the country respectively... The Anhui Provincial Transportation Work Conference held on January 18 presented the "report card" of the past five years and also drew a better blueprint for the future development of transportation in Anhui.

　　In the past five years, Anhui Province's transportation infrastructure construction has been strong: a number of expressways such as Xuming, Tongnanxuan, and Liguang have been completed, with a total of 1,463 kilometers of new expressways added, bringing the total mileage to 4,673 kilometers; 2,393 kilometers of new first-class highways were added, bringing the total mileage to 4,151 kilometers; 3,790 dangerous rural bridges were renovated, and 71,000 kilometers of rural roads were newly built or upgraded; urban bus operating mileage reached 32,000 kilometers, with 25,000 standard buses, and the bus priority development strategy has been implemented; the Ma'anshan Yangtze River Highway Bridge, Wangdong Yangtze River Highway Bridge, Wuhu Yangtze River Second Highway Bridge, National Highway 104 Huaihe River Grand Bridge, and Fengtai Huaihe River Second Highway Bridge have been completed successively, with the number of river (Yangtze) and Huaihe River crossings reaching 7 and 25 respectively; the regulation of three major tributary waterways—Wushen Canal, Shaying River, and Heyu Line—has been completed, with high-grade waterway mileage reaching 1,433 kilometers; the number of airlines investing in capacity in Anhui has increased to 30, with route networks covering more than 60 large and medium-sized cities at home and abroad, passenger throughput growing at an average annual rate of 13.5%, and cargo and mail throughput growing at an average annual rate of 8.7%; postal business volume grew at an average annual rate of 44%, and annual express delivery volume exceeded 900 million items.

　　In 2017, all transportation targets and tasks in the province were successfully completed. The annual investment was 84 billion yuan, with 130 kilometers of new expressways and 318 kilometers of first-class highways added, and 21,000 kilometers of rural road access projects completed. Tolls for expressways and ship locks were reduced or exempted by 1.5 billion yuan. Road transport, water transport, civil aviation transport, and postal express all exceeded their targets.

　　The conference proposed that in 2018, Anhui Province will complete 70 billion yuan of investment in transportation construction.

　　In terms of road construction, 160 kilometers of new expressways will be added, bringing the total mileage to over 4,830 kilometers, of which the mileage of expressways with six or more lanes will reach 410 kilometers. It is planned to complete three expressway projects: Chuzhou to Dingyuan, Dingyuan to Huainan, and Guangde to Ningguo; accelerate the construction of river crossings such as the Chizhou Yangtze River Highway Bridge and the reconstruction and expansion projects of three expressways radiating from Hefei; and start construction of three PPP projects: the Huangshan to Qiandao Lake section of the Li-Ning Expressway, the Wuwei to Yuexi section of the Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway, and the Hefei to Zongyang section of the De-Shang Expressway, as well as the Chizhou to Qimen section of the De-Shang Expressway and the Chuzhou to Tianchang section of the North Yangtze River Expressway. In addition, 3,000 kilometers of ordinary national and provincial trunk highways will be newly built or upgraded, and 350 kilometers of first-class highways will be added. 17,000 kilometers of rural road access projects will be completed.

　　In terms of public transportation, the construction of urban bus lanes will be accelerated. The promotion of one-card interconnection will be advanced, support will be given to Hefei, Wuhu, and other places to develop rail transit, and the full coverage of urban public transportation in built-up areas and suburbs will be gradually achieved, continuously increasing the public transportation travel share. At the same time, the task of providing bus access to administrative villages assigned by the Ministry of Transport will be completed, with 70 new administrative villages having bus access. The transformation of rural passenger transport lines into bus services and company operation will be promoted, striving to achieve a bus operation rate of over 40% for rural passenger transport lines within 20 kilometers of county towns.

　　In terms of civil aviation, Anhui Province will accelerate the construction of multimodal transport nodes, off-site terminals, and other intermodal transport facilities, actively strive to increase base airlines, and ensure that passenger throughput at Hefei Xinqiao Airport exceeds 10 million person-times. In terms of ports, port throughput will reach 530 million tons, with 1.5 million TEUs of containers.