At the heart of China’s exceptional flows

Contrary to popular belief reinforced by images of polluted cities, today’s China has made improving quality of life a top priority. Take just one example : each morning, the inhabitants of Beijing check their smartphones for the latest pollution index, available in real time. And their data is more reliable than most other major cities worldwide, because the Chinese middle class is particularly sensitive to the issue of well-being. For that matter, Chinese authorities are increasingly aware that after two decades of economic growth, quality of life has become their citizens’ primary preoccupation.

The Chinese even have a slogan: “Make our cities better to make our lives better.”

Established in China for more than 15 years, we’ve observed these changes close up and proposed solutions to address the central issue at stake: redesign public spaces to better accommodate the flows of vast numbers of visitors. Because when we say “flows” in China, that means multiplying by 10 the traffic flows we experience in Europe! In this context, each new project is truly a dilemma: decongesting passenger flows for millions of individuals represents a huge challenge!

And the issue goes far beyond stations. Our subsidiary AREP takes on a diversity of projects: from the Air China tower (in China, upward mobility is the name of the game!), to the new CHU Xie-He hospital, to the historic museum of Beijing, China is opening doors to all kinds of urban planning issues. When you’re a key player specialized in stations, you’re also capable of designing public spaces that can accommodate huge crowds. It’s an original philosophy that we fully share, and that offers us new fields of experimentation.

Thanks to our know-how, SNCF Gares & Connexions has been involved in innovative projects such as the creation of the Caidian eco-neighborhood in the Wuhan district, a new terrain for exploration and research. In addition, for a forward-looking China that is equally interested in its own history, we’ve been asked to rehabilitate a building constructed in 1905 in the oldest business district of Beijing (1368 – 1644). There, the challenge has been to recreate a center for artisans and retailers, combining the modern comforts of light and space with 19th-century esthetics.

The width and breadth of our expertise has enriched the scope of our traditional projects. Our latest challenge? The 2022 Winter Olympics station in Beijing. It’s a hub for multimodal transfers, where a range of different mobility modes are piled in successive layers. Pedestrians stroll through verdant green spaces to reach trains and junctions to automobiles and metro lines. In China, all mobility modes are required to handle exceptional traffic flows.  

Strengthened by this experience, we opened a new office in Shanghai this summer. A new center to reinforce our expertise in flow management and nourish our vision of accommodating spaces.

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