The closest Metro station by the National Exhibition and Convention Center (Shanghai), venue for the second China International Import Expo, is expecting around 150,000 passengers a day during the event.

Staff members at the East Xujing station on Line 2 has been doubled and they will be assisted by 5G technology and facilities.

In the station's control room, six large screens have been installed. Each has a unique feature to help staff marshal passenger flows.

All screens are connected to cameras in the station which sends video footage to the control room.

“We have a system to help us calculate the number of passengers based on the footage,” said Sun Fanbei, the station master. “The system will then generate a heat map on the screen so that we will know which part of the station is crowded and how should we guide passengers.”

The same system has been installed at Zhuguang Road station on Line 17 and at Hongqiao Railway Station on Line 2 and Line 10. Information from all three stations goes back to the East Xujing control room.

Mobile cameras have been installed at exits 4 and 5 at East Xujing, the two exits closest to the expo venue. Sun said these cameras are connected to cameras inside the venue. Together they send the overall number of visitors in the expo venue to the control room.

“If by 7pm there are still more than 50,000 people inside the venue, we will know that we should prepare for a large passenger flow peak and we can ask the dispatch center to prepare extra trains.”

“Such a huge data transmission can never be done without the 5G technology,” said Sun. “The 5G signal we use is from an internal server which means it won’t be interfered with by passengers' cellphone signals.”

Shanghai Metro has also installed routers near the ticket vending area of East Xujing. These routers will change the 5G signal into a WiFi signal for all passengers to use even if their cellphones don’t support 5G.

Passengers can find the WiFi of “CMCC-SHMETRO-5G1” when they get close to the ticket vending area.

Shanghai Metro said they offered the signal so that people who haven’t started using the Metro Daduhui app can download it.

“It will take only a second to download the app,” said a staff member. “The app can be used to pay for the Metro tickets as the passengers scan the QR code from the app.”

Trains on Lines 2, 10 and 17 are also equipped with new technologies. A sensor to measure the weight of the trains has been installed. Sun said that, based on data from the sensor, the system can estimate the number of passengers on any train. If the train is crowded, extra manpower can be sent to the platform to help.

From November 1, passengers may notice some staff wearing goggles.

These augmented-reality goggles are another method of managing passenger flows.

“Once we put on the goggles, the vision we see through it is transmitted back to the control room,” said Sun. “People in the room will have a better grasp of the situation inside the station.”

One of the staff said wearing the goggles made everything like a big-screen movie. At peak hours, staff wearing goggles will be deployed at different spots in the station so that the control room can better coordinate manpower to help direct passengers.

On Thursday, the three major communication operators, China Mobile, China Unicom, and China Telecom jointly announced the official start for the 5G signal for commercial purposes. The 5G equipment at East Xujing is one such application.