At the provincial transport work conference held on the afternoon of January 18, Shi Ping, director of the Provincial Department of Transport, revealed that this year Anhui Province will complete three expressway projects—Chuzhou to Dingyuan, Dingyuan to Huainan, and Guangde to Ningguo—while accelerating the reconstruction and expansion of three expressways radiating from Hefei. Construction will begin on the Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway's Wuwei to Yuexi section and the Dezhou-Shangrao Expressway's Hefei to Zongyang section.
In 2018, Anhui Province will complete 70 billion yuan in transport construction investment. It will add 160 kilometers of expressway, bringing the total mileage open to traffic to more than 4,830 kilometers, of which 410 kilometers will be expressways with six or more lanes.
According to the plan, in the expressway sector this year, Anhui Province will complete three expressway projects—Chuzhou to Dingyuan, Dingyuan to Huainan, and Guangde to Ningguo—accelerate the construction of river-crossing passages such as the Chizhou Yangtze River Highway Bridge and the reconstruction and expansion of three expressways radiating from Hefei, and begin construction on three PPP projects—the Liyang-Ningde Expressway's Huangshan to Qiandao Lake section, the Shanghai-Wuhan Expressway's Wuwei to Yuexi section, and the Dezhou-Shangrao Expressway's Hefei to Zongyang section—as well as the Dezhou-Shangrao Expressway's Chizhou to Qimen section and the North Yangtze River Expressway's Chuzhou to Tianchang section. It will strive to begin construction on the Hefei-Huoqiu-Fuyang Expressway and advance preliminary work on a number of projects, including the Fuyang to Huaibin Expressway and the reconstruction and expansion of the Shanghai-Shaanxi Expressway's Hefei to Dagudian section. The three expressways radiating from Hefei are the Hefei-Wuhu, Hefei-Nanjing, and Hefei-Anqing expressways. Once completed, the six-lane sections toward Wuhu, Nanjing, and Anqing will be expanded to eight lanes, making travel smoother. Preliminary work is also under way for the reconstruction and expansion of the Hefei-Lu'an-Yeji Expressway's Hefei to Dagudian section.
At the same time, the province will urge Jiangsu and Zhejiang provinces to begin construction as soon as possible on the Jiangsu section of the Liyang-Guangde Expressway and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang section of the Nanjing-Xuancheng-Hangzhou Expressway, and ensure that 10 ordinary national and provincial trunk highway "dead-end roads" begin construction and 3 are completed.
Beyond road construction, pilot programs encouraged by the state are also under way, including the pilot for non-truck-operating carriers. Shi Ping revealed that Anhui Province will accelerate the development of intermodal passenger transport this year and promote the integrated development of scheduled passenger transport, chartered passenger transport, tourist passenger transport, and urban public transport. It will build or upgrade 25 service facilities on national and provincial trunk highways.
At present, the province's off-site airport terminals have increased to 32, the number of airlines operating capacity in Anhui has grown to 30, the route network covers more than 60 large and medium-sized cities at home and abroad, and passenger throughput has grown by an average of 13.5 percent annually. Accelerating the construction of intermodal transport nodes, off-site terminals, and other intermodal facilities has been put on the agenda. The province will strive to add base airlines and ensure that passenger throughput at Hefei Xinqiao Airport exceeds 10 million.