Huawei Xinghe AI High-Quality 10 Gbps Campus Production Network Sets a New Pace for Smart Rail Transit in Shanghai

In Shanghai, a vibrant metropolis that never sleeps, the metro system has become the backbone of urban public transportation, celebrated for its exceptional operating efficiency and ongoing technological innovation. By November 2025, Shanghai Metro had 21 lines spanning 898 kilometers, making it the most extensive metro system in China. However, beneath this expansive, high-capacity system lies a series of operational pain points and network architecture challenges that urgently demand fundamental breakthroughs.

The earliest lines of Shanghai Metro have been operating for over 30 years under complex conditions. Multiple lines are now suffering from aging equipment, high-impact failures, and rising maintenance costs year by year. Compounding this is a vast, complex metro management system spanning multiple fields such as signaling, communications, video security, power supply, and rolling stock. Worse yet, most early electromechanical equipment relies on industrial buses, creating closed network architectures and isolated data silos, while the signaling system lacks ultra-precise clock synchronization. To address these challenges, Shanghai Metro urgently needs to transform its operations using advanced industrial Internet technologies. The goal is clear: achieving Grade of Automation 3 (GoA3), digitalized, intelligent Operations and Maintenance (O&M), and secure, stable train operations.

Challenges and Requirements of Rail Transit Production Networks

To ensure long-term stable metro operations, Shanghai Metro is optimizing and upgrading multiple systems, including rolling stock, signaling, communications, and integrated inspection. For the signaling system, the operational pain points and network demands include the following:

Pain point 1: In underground stations, distance limits of the copper cables used for the Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) make it impossible to provide backup clock sources for Long-Term Evolution for Machines (LTE-M) wireless base stations.

Wireless base stations rely on GNSS receiving antennas installed in each station to communicate with satellites, ensuring time synchronization between stations. Currently, each Baseband Unit (BBU) is deployed with only a single GNSS source and lacks redundancy. In the event of a failure, time synchronization is lost, disrupting train control services and compromising timetable accuracy. To address this, the industrial network must deliver high-precision clock synchronization to serve as a reliable backup clock source for wireless base stations, guaranteeing zero-deviation train control.

Pain point 2: Complex, long-term operational environments for metro signaling equipment require industrial-grade, high-reliability design of network devices.

The environments for installing and commissioning signaling equipment are highly complex, with some devices deployed inside tunnel sections where they are long exposed to harsh conditions. This necessitates highly reliable industrial networks constructed with devices that can adapt to extreme temperatures, humidity, water, and dust, and operate stably for as long as 15 years. Rapid network self-healing is also essential. For example, industry standards such as Communications-Based Train Control (CBTC) signaling system specifications for urban rail transit require a sub-50 ms network reconfiguration time upon node failures to guarantee uncompromised, secure train operations.

Pain point 3: On rail transit production networks, severe broadcast storms in Layer 2 ring topologies prolong troubleshooting and degrade passenger experience.

Rail transit production networks predominantly adopt Layer 2 ring topologies, which are prone to broadcast storms. Once a broadcast storm or other network anomalies occur, manual on-site troubleshooting becomes exceptionally challenging and time-consuming. This forces trains to operate in degraded modes at reduced speeds, causing delays and ultimately compromising passenger experience.

Choosing Huawei's Xinghe AI High-Quality 10 Gbps Campus Production Network Solution to Overcome Critical Challenges

After a meticulous selection process, Shanghai Metro chose Huawei's Xinghe AI High-Quality 10 Gbps Campus Production Network Solution to address its core business pain points and stringent network requirements. This future-ready solution drives the intelligent, long-term development of urban rail transit by delivering key capabilities, including:

• Ultra-high-precision network clock sources ensure uninterrupted synchronization signals for train control base stations. Huawei's CloudEngine S5735I high-performance industrial switches deliver ultra-high-precision network clock synchronization and comply with the IEEE 1588v2 protocol to achieve a remarkable 30 ns time synchronization accuracy. They support large ring topologies with up to 50 nodes while easily meeting the stringent 1.5 μs synchronization requirements. This not only ensures always-on synchronization signals at train control base stations, but also enables shorter train headways, significantly boosting train operational efficiency and safety.

• Highly reliable industrial production networks guarantee stable metro system operations. Huawei's full lineup of industrial switches feature a fanless design, natural heat dissipation, wide-temperature operation, and high Ingress Protection (IP) protection ratings, allowing them to thrive in the harshest environments. Furthermore, they support the Ethernet Ring Protection Switching (ERPS) protocol, achieving rapid protection switching within 20 ms. This guarantees uninterrupted, highly reliable data backhaul for mission-critical services, including train control, power Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA), and integrated electromechanical inspection systems.

• Production ring networks can detect and recover from loops quickly, while historical fault rollback eliminates hidden risks. Huawei iMaster NCE-Campus can automatically detect Layer 2 loops, rapidly pinpoint them, and block looped ports to prevent network-wide broadcast storms from disrupting train control services. It also offers network quality visibility, in-band flow measurement, and 24/7 fault rollback analysis. Together, these capabilities help quickly pinpoint hard-to-reproduce issues, eliminate hidden risks, and guarantee stable system operations.

Shanghai Metro's core production systems—including signaling, communications, video security, integrated inspection, and power SCADA—are now fully underpinned by Huawei's Xinghe AI High-Quality 10 Gbps Campus Production Network Solution. Harnessing this solution to deeply integrate industrial IoT, AI, big data, cloud computing, and other cutting-edge technologies into its daily workflows, Shanghai Metro is driving a paradigm shift in device O&M. In the past, it relied on a reactive approach focused on after-the-fact repair and scheduled maintenance; today, it operates on a proactive model characterized by real-time monitoring, intelligent alerting, and precise execution. This transformation not only secures seamless metro station workflows and uncompromised train safety, but also drives high-quality, sustainable development for smart urban rail transit, setting a faster pace for city transportation.