BEIJING, Oct. 17 -- Beijing Metro lines have seen passenger volume jump 30 percent in the week after the city lowered the subway fare to a fixed price of two yuan (26 US cents), the Beijing News reported today.

The city's five Metro lines carried 21.35 million passengers from October 7 to 15, up 30 percent from the previous week, the Metro operator said in a press conference yesterday afternoon.

Metro Line No. 5, which was recently put into operation on a trial basis, carried 3.38 million passengers over the week.

"We will try our best to cut the interval (between trains) in the first quarter of next year," Jia Peng, the publicity chief of the city's Metro line operator, said yesterday.

The interval is expected to shrink to 2 minutes and 30 seconds from the current 2 minutes and 45 seconds around the end of this year, the report said.

By the time the Olympics open next summer, the shortest interval will be 15 to 20 seconds, the report said.

More carriages and new trains will be put into use before the Olympics, the report said.

The city canceled monthly passes enjoyed by a few riders and lowed subway fares this month.

Commuters used to pay an average of 3.25 yuan for a Metro trip by using tickets while monthly pass users only paid 1.41 yuan per trip.

The monthly pass, a practice that has been in use for many years in Beijing, could only be used on Metro Line 1 and Line 2 in the city while many people could not buy it a pass as they were only distributed in small numbers.