The Shenzhen Metro had a busy New Year holiday with more than 700,000 passengers taking to the subway over the past three days, sources from Shenzhen Metro Co. Ltd. said Monday.

Some 260,000 passengers used the Metro system Saturday while 240,000 passengers took subway trains Sunday.

As well as tourists, many families took the opportunity to experience the subway system at the weekend.

There were crowded scenes at Luohu, Old Street, Grand Theater, Huaqiangbei and Window of the World stations, where security guards had to close entry gates to prevent overcrowding Saturday and Sunday.

With almost every train packed, passengers reportedly had to wait for two or three trains before they could get on at peak times.

On occasions, the platform doors could not be closed because of passengers overflowing outside the train temporarily causing chaos.

It was reported that a communications breakdown caused one overloaded train to discontinue for 42 minutes Saturday.

There were embarrassing scenes as some ticket vending machines ran out of tokens.

As well as about 500 volunteer workers on duty to help passengers, about 400 security guards were deployed at stations to keep order.

The Metro system was more orderly Monday as the holiday ended, said a Metro staff member surnamed Yu.

“We call on locals to choose other public transport instead of taking the Metro during holidays to avoid the overflow of passengers,” Yu said.

A shortage of trains was the biggest problem hampering the Metro system. Trains on Line 1 could be expected to depart every 12 to 13 minutes during the first half of the year and eight minutes by the end of the year, said an official with the Metro company named Zheng Ning.

(Shenzhen Daily January 4, 2005)