On April 28, 2012, Suzhou Metro Line 1# designed by SIYUAN was open to traffic. It’s the first Metro line under operation in Suzhou, making Suzhou the first prefecture-level city in China with metro open to traffic.

Suzhou Metro Line 1# stretches from Tianping Rolling Stock Depot at the foot of Tianpingshan Mountain in the west, to Zhongnan Street of the industrial park in the east, with 24 stations along the line. The east-west running line connecting the Suzhou High-tech Zone, ancient city zone, and the industrial zone is estimated to transport up to 25,000 passengers during peak hours, which can effectively relieve the traffic pressure of Suzhou ancient city zone.

Suzhou has long been well-known for its “small bridges over running streams, and historic gardens”. The 26km long Suzhou Metro Line 1# not only “crosses” this 2500-year-old famous ancient city, but also successfully “passes through” layers of protection barriers for historic scenery, adding new features to the ancient city layout of “l(fā)andway and waterway running in parallel, and street and river bordering on each other”.

In order to demonstrate the cultural connotations of Suzhou, SIYUAN has attached great importance to and made repeated analysis by referring to advanced experiences both home and abroad on all details from distribution of stations, to architectural layout and decoration of each individual station.

The auxiliary architectures such as ventilation pavilions and entrances & exits of the 24 subway stations along the line are of antique beauty, integrated with the styles and features of surrounding scenery. Particularly, the indoor decorations with specific local characteristics have well demonstrated the culture of Wu.

The Tianping Rolling Stock Depot located at Tianping Scenic Spot of Suzhou is for the maintenance and stabling of trains for Metro Line 1. With disordered but well-arranged architectures, inner courtyard type layout, landscape characteristics of “different views with each moving step”, as well as the large-area greens, Tianping Rolling Stock Depot becomes the first scenic vehicle depot.

In view of surface architectures, apart from overall control, during the construction of Suzhou Metro Line 1, a series of scientific and effective engineering protection technical measures have been adopted, mainly the outside hanging of equipment zone, subsection design, shield tunneling, and track vibration reduction, etc..

A subway with perfect combination of modern traffic and ancient charms is bound to be welcomed by Suzhou people. In the “10,000 people trial-ride week”, the passenger satisfaction rate was up to 91.9%. As the main contractor and designer of Suzhou Metro Line 1, SIYUAN has taken the first step towards “the spring of subway”. With its rail transit businesses expanded to 20 cities, SIYUAN is now among the leading companies in the field of urban rail transit in China.