BEIJING, Nov. 28 -- Passengers will be able to transfer from one Metro line to another by simply walking up or down stairs at the Metro transfer hub Xizang Road S. Station when it is opened next month.

Under the current system, passengers need to walk up to hundreds of meters to shift to another Metro line at all of the city's existing transfer hubs such as People's Square, Zhongshan Park and Shanghai South Railway Station.

The station, where the upcoming Metro Line 4 and 8 is set to converge, will have the shortest transfer distance and the only vertically structured one among the completed eight transport hubs, Metro officials told the city's top advisory body members yesterday.

The top layer of the three-storey underground station is an octagonal entry-exit hall, with 27 turnstiles in four different directions to handle large numbers of passengers.

Trains from Metro Line 8 will run through the second floor of the station, carrying passengers between the city's northeast Yangpu District and the 2010 World Expo site in the southern part of the city.

The bottom layer of the station is designed to hold Metro Line 4, which is scheduled to start its ring-shaped operation around Shanghai from December 28.

(Source: Shanghai Daily)