The Ministry of Transport ("MOT") has recently issued the Interim Administrative Measures for Safety Assessment Before the Early-stage Operation of Urban Rail Transit (the "Measures") which are set to take effect from July 1, 2019 and remain valid for three years.
Comprised of 28 articles in six chapters which are "General Provisions", "Preconditions", "Implementation Requirements", "Third-party Safety Assessment Agencies", "Operation Safety Experts", "Supplementary Provisions", and an appendix, the Measures provide that prior to a safety assessment for the early-stage operation, the engineering project for urban rail transit is required to pass special inspections and be proved qualified in the completion acceptance inspection and problems detected in such inspections that will affect the operation safety and the quality of basic services must have all been rectified; the uncompleted parts of such engineering project, if any, shall not have an impact on the safety of the early-stage operation and the level of basic services. Moreover, the Measures require the third-party assessment agency to review during the assessment whether the engineering project meets preconditions for safety assessment conducted before the early-stage operation and to check whether functions of the urban rail transit system satisfy requirements set out in the design documents.