Shanghai’s Metro trains were noticeably empty during the morning commute on the first workday following the extended Spring Festival holiday.

Shanghai Metro said the number of passengers taking trains was down roughly 80 percent from the workday average as of 9am yesterday.

On average, the Metro had 10 million daily passengers last year, according to officials. In contrast, during this year‘s extended holiday, the average number of daily Metro passengers was about 800,000.

The Shanghai government issued a notice on Sunday encouraging companies to postpone working hours and let employees work from home.

At Hanzhong Road Station — an interchange station for Metro lines 1, 12 and 13 — station director, Zhang Lu, estimated the number of passengers yesterday morning was 90 percent lower than usual during rush hour.

At Nanxiang Station on Line 11 in Jiading District, where trains are normally packed with morning commuters and tourists bound for the city’s Disneyland resort, most carriages were largely empty.

A woman surnamed Mao who lives in Nanxiang Town and works for an electric-power design company in Putuo District, took the train from the station at 8:35am. She said she left home an hour later than usual, as her company now allows employees to arrive late.

“I’m not surprised to see that there are only a few Metro passengers this morning, because many companies have not yet returned to work. At my company, some people are still under home quarantine,” she said.

A woman who lives in the Pudong New Area and asked to remain anonymous works for a consulting company and said her company is prohibiting employees from taking public transportation to work, including buses, Metro trains and taxis.

“My colleagues who don‘t have cars had to ask to work from home, but those rules are intended to keep all employees safe,” she said.

Safety measures in place

Meanwhile, the city’s streets yesterday were less crowded than on a normal workday. However, busy areas, such as the North-South Elevated Road at Guangzhong Road and the Inner Ring Road at Wuzhong Road, experienced predictable congestion, according to Shanghai traffic police.

At Hanzhong Road Station, almost every security checkpoint has thermal-imaging equipment that checks passengers for signs of fever in real time without the use of hand-held sensors.

The devices alert staff when a passenger has a temperature over 37.3 degrees Celsius. Staff then double check the passenger’s temperature with a thermometer.

All passengers taking Metro trains have to wear facial masks, and all station workers are provided with masks and hand sanitizer every day.

Shanghai Metro has stepped up disinfection in all 415 stations and more than 800 trains.

Every station, including equipment in public areas such as handrails and chairs, is disinfected every four hours and at least four times a day. Toilets and security-screening devices are disinfected every hour.