China opens its fastest cross-sea high-speed railway

China's fastest cross-sea high-speed railway connecting cities including Fuzhou and Xiamen along the west coast of the Taiwan Straits began operation on Thursday.

A Fuxing bullet train departed from Fuzhou, the capital of east China's Fujian Province, at 9:15 a.m., marking the opening of the 277-km Fuzhou-Xiamen-Zhangzhou high-speed railway that boasts a maximum speed of 350 km/h.

The route of the Fuzhou-Xiamen-Zhangzhou high-speed railway. /China State Railway Group Co., Ltd.

The railway slashes the travel time between Fuzhou and Xiamen, two major cities in Fujian Province, to 55 minutes. It also runs through the cities of Putian, Quanzhou and Zhangzhou, enabling short-time commute of about 30 minutes among the cities.

With its construction starting in 2017, the railway features intelligent technologies, including the Internet of Things, edge computing and geographic information system, marking another step forward in the country's construction of intelligent transportation.