The extensive combined sea-rail transportation network in East China's Shanghai – key to its imports and exports – continues overall to operate in rude health, despite the outbreak of COVID-19 in the city, according to its railway department.

The department said that since March, 655 combined sea-rail freight trains had set off, carrying 84,000 TEU (twenty-foot equivalent units) of containers – up 42 percent year-on-year and playing an important role in ensuring the city's smooth transportation and supplies.

While road transport has been partially blocked due to the COVID-19 outbreak in Shanghai, railway transport is currently said to be fully leveraging its competitive advantages in terms of large volumes of cargo, low freight prices, its all-weather functionality, its time efficiency and its direct access to downtown Shanghai.

Part of the container volumes originally transported by road to Shanghai has now been diverted through the combined sea-rail network, easing the pressures on the logistics transport system.

The combined sea-rail transport business of Luchao Port Central Station accounts for 90 percent of the business volume in Shanghai. After the coronavirus outbreak, the station maintained operations 24 hours a day to ensure it receives at least 20 TEUs of emergency supplies per day.

Most containers entering and leaving the station are imports and exports, resulting in a high risk of a virus outbreak. As a result, Luchao Port Central Station has strengthened its epidemic prevention and control measures, with daily temperature tests and regular nucleic acid tests carried out on its staff members, among other things.