In recent years, China's transportation industry has continued to develop and has become a pioneer in Chinese-style modernization.

This year marks the fifth year since the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and the State Council issued the Outline for Building a Leading Transportation Nation. Over the past five years, China has continued to promote high-quality transportation development, with infrastructure constantly improving, passenger and freight transport continuously developing, scientific and technological innovation constantly strengthening, the level of green and low-carbon development constantly rising, the super-ministry system reform continuously deepening, and international cooperation constantly strengthening... Among these, the capacity and level of comprehensive transportation governance have constantly improved, and the legal, policy, and standards systems have become more robust.

"Overall, in the five years since the Outline for Building a Leading Transportation Nation was issued, China's comprehensive transportation strength has achieved a substantial leap, taking a big step toward the goal of being satisfactory to the people, providing strong safeguards, and ranking among the world's leaders," said Li Xiaopeng, Minister of Transport, recently.

　　Comprehensive transport network becomes more complete

Since the founding of New China, generations have cut roads through mountains and built bridges over rivers, building China into a major transportation country and now accelerating the building of a leading transportation nation. At present, the total mileage of China's comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network has exceeded 6 million kilometers, and the comprehensive transport network running east-west and north-south has become more complete.

According to Li Xiaopeng, the main framework of "6 axes, 7 corridors, and 8 channels"—composed of 6 main transportation corridors among the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region, the Yangtze River Delta, the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, and the Chengdu-Chongqing economic circles, 7 corridors including the Western Land-Sea Corridor, and 8 channels including border corridors—has basically taken shape, covering more than 80% of the country's counties (cities and districts) and serving about 90% of the country's economy and population.

Data show that by the end of 2023, China's railway operating mileage reached 159,000 kilometers, including more than 45,000 kilometers of high-speed rail; the national highway mileage open to traffic was 5.4368 million kilometers, including 183,600 kilometers of expressways; the navigable mileage of inland waterways was 128,200 kilometers, including 15,400 kilometers of waterways of Grade III and above; the number of productive berths at ports reached 22,023, including 2,878 berths of 10,000-ton class and above; the total number of civil transport airports was 259, including 38 transport airports with annual passenger throughput of 10 million person-times or more and 63 transport airports with cargo and mail throughput of 10,000 tons or more.

"Overall, tremendous achievements have been made in infrastructure construction, and tremendous achievements have been made in the construction of the comprehensive three-dimensional transportation network, especially the main framework and main trunk routes, but shortcomings still remain. For example, there are still weaknesses in the development of conventional railways, the capacity of inter-regional expressway corridors still needs to be improved, there are still shortcomings in inland waterway construction and the connectivity of the water transport system, and the radiating capacity of comprehensive hubs is still not strong," Li Xiaopeng said. Next, the Ministry of Transport will further accelerate the construction of the main framework of "6 axes, 7 corridors, and 8 channels" and build demonstration major channels; deeply implement the strengthening of the national comprehensive freight hub network by filling gaps and enhancing weak links, and advance a series of major construction projects such as the railway freight network project, the national highway connectivity and quality improvement project, and the inland water transport system connectivity project. It will accelerate the removal of bottlenecks and blockages and make new contributions to smoothing the circulation of the national economy.

　Deepening comprehensive governance of delivery safety

In recent years, the high-quality development of industries such as postal services, railways, and civil aviation has accelerated, constantly advancing the beautiful vision of "people enjoying their journeys and goods flowing smoothly." Taking the postal industry as an example, in 2023 the national express delivery volume exceeded 132 billion parcels, and in the first half of this year 80 billion parcels have already been completed, an increase of 23% over the same period last year, continuing to show rapid growth.

Delivery services are closely related to the daily lives of the people, and delivery safety concerns the national economy and people's livelihood. Zhao Chongjiu, Director of the State Post Bureau, said that postal management departments, including the entire industry, are making every effort to ensure the safe and smooth operation of delivery channels and the safety and stability of the industry.

Actively improving the delivery safety prevention and control system. In light of the characteristics of the delivery industry, a trinity model of real-name collection and delivery, inspection upon collection, and security screening has been established. Regulations on the administration of prohibited items for delivery have been issued, and comprehensive governance of delivery safety has been deepened. Seventeen departments jointly carried out a special action for safe delivery, strengthening counter-terrorism and anti-drug efforts, combating pornography and illegal publications, and cracking down on telecom and online fraud, making an industry contribution to building a higher-level Safe China.

Carrying out normalized hidden danger investigation and rectification. A three-year action for tackling root causes in work safety has been implemented, focusing on the special rectification of the "four non-compliant" problems of substandard equipment and facilities, inadequate on-site management, non-standard employee attire, and non-compliant operations, comprehensively raising the level of standardized safety management at mail and express production and operation sites, and effectively preventing relatively major and above work safety accidents. Safety supervision and inspection and administrative law enforcement have been strengthened, delivery enterprises' headquarters have been urged to implement unified network-wide management responsibilities, and investment in human and technical prevention has been increased to enhance intrinsic safety.

Stepping up the implementation of projects to strengthen safety through science and technology. The "Green Shield" project for safety supervision of delivery channels has been built, a big data management platform has been established, and the development and application of intelligent security screening and intelligent audio-visual monitoring technologies in the industry have been carried out, enabling dynamic tracking of mail and express deliveries, discovery of hidden dangers, early warning of incidents, risk control, and traceability of responsibilities. At the same time, the application of privacy labels on mail and express items has been promoted, striving to build a technological "protective shield" for the personal information security of postal and express users.

In addition, every effort has been made to ensure the stable operation of the industry. The protection of the legitimate rights and interests of couriers has been improved, the building of the industry's safety officer team has been strengthened, and contradictions and disputes have been promptly investigated and resolved.

"Now, nearly 500 million express parcels are in circulation every day, and the overall safety risk of the industry is under control," Zhao Chongjiu said. "Next, we will thoroughly implement the overall national security concept, vigorously enhance the safety governance capacity of delivery channels, safeguard the high-quality development of the industry with high-level safety, and make new contributions to safeguarding national security, social stability, and the safety of people's lives and property."

　Building a coordinated civil aviation operation system

The civil aviation industry is an important part of building a leading transportation nation. For civil aviation passengers, whether flights are on time is a matter of great concern. Flight punctuality not only affects the travel experience of the vast number of passengers but also reflects whether the overall civil aviation transport organization is efficient and smooth, and is an important indicator of high-quality civil aviation development.

"The core of improving flight punctuality is to improve the operational efficiency of civil aviation," said Song Zhiyong, Director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China. "In recent years, we have taken multiple measures and adopted a comprehensive approach to improving the operational efficiency of civil aviation."

Optimizing the airspace structure and increasing airspace capacity. With the continuous release of the dividends of national air traffic control reform, the supply of airspace resources has been continuously optimized. By opening major air corridors, optimizing the airspace structure, and increasing flight capacity in busy airspace, the problem of airspace congestion caused by rapid flight growth has been effectively alleviated.

Improving operating standards and enhancing the level of coordinated transport. Airlines, airports, and air traffic control are the three main entities of civil aviation operations. Targeted policies and measures have been formulated, including measures for airline flight organization, airport ground support, air traffic control flow management, and airport bridge docking rate assessment, setting specific requirements for reducing the minimum separation of aircraft operations, reducing ground taxiing time, reducing the time aircraft occupy runways, and increasing the bridge docking rate of airport contact stands, constantly optimizing operating standards. This year, the Measures for the Administration of Coordinated Civil Aviation Operations was also issued, building a national, regional, and airport three-level civil aviation coordinated operation system featuring consultative decision-making, coordinated implementation, and dynamic management, and continuously improving the matching efficiency between route capacity and flight flow.

Promoting the application of new technologies to improve operational efficiency. Civil aviation is an area where new technologies are concentrated. In recent years, through promoting the application of new technologies and optimizing and improving operating methods, safety and operational efficiency have been continuously improved.

"Through these efforts, the flight punctuality rate of civil aviation has exceeded 80% for six consecutive years. In the first half of this year, despite a 13.4% year-on-year increase in flight volume, the flight punctuality rate reached 86.37%," Song Zhiyong said. "We have now entered the thunderstorm season, which is also the stage with the greatest pressure and difficulty in ensuring operations throughout the year. We have already deployed our work in advance to strive to reduce the impact of weather on flight punctuality while ensuring safe operations, and to ensure smooth travel for everyone."

Promoting the "four-network integration" of rail transit

As the backbone of the comprehensive transportation system, railways are not only major national infrastructure but also major livelihood projects and the main artery of the national economy. In recent years, railways have achieved positive results in strengthening their own construction and development, promoting the accelerated building of a leading transportation nation, and serving economic and social development. With the implementation of national regional strategies, the demand for "four-network integration" has become increasingly strong.

"'Four-network integration' refers to the integration of trunk railways, intercity railways, suburban (city) railways, and urban rail transit, mainly the integration and interconnection of subways with intercity and suburban (city) railways," said Fei Dongbin, Director of the National Railway Administration. "The problems and difficulties in 'four-network integration' mainly lie in the inconsistent systems, inconsistent standards, and inconsistent management between subways and railways. In response to these problems, we are coordinating with relevant departments and provinces, using the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area in Guangdong Province as a pilot, to vigorously promote 'four-network integration' work and strive to create a rail transit integration development model with Chinese characteristics."

Since the beginning of this year, the National Railway Administration has supported and guided the opening of the Guangzhou-Foshan South Ring and Foshan-Dongguan intercity railways, which have achieved "four-line connectivity" and bus-style operation with the Foshan-Zhaoqing and Dongguan-Huizhou intercity railways. At the same time, it has organized relevant departments of Guangdong Province, relevant enterprises and institutions, and industry associations to establish a special working group, and jointly with Guangdong Province formulated an implementation plan for promoting the "four-network integration" of rail transit in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area. The plan is currently being accelerated in implementation, and on this basis, industry standards with Chinese characteristics will be formed to guide "four-network integration" work across the country.

Fei Dongbin said, "Next, on the basis of the pilot in the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, we will coordinate and promote the pilot and rollout of 'four-network integration' on a larger scale, vigorously advance regional integrated development, and better serve the implementation of major national strategies. We will focus on efforts in areas such as facility interconnection, ticket system interoperability, mutual trust in security screening, information sharing, and management coordination."