Services will be improved on Line 9 when new trains come into service, Metro operators announced yesterday.

Metro management said 13 new trains ordered for Line 9 have been transported to the city.

The new trains will boost capacity and shorten intervals between trains on the line, which runs mainly through Songjiang District.

Five or six of the new trains will finish vehicle and signal testing and come into service this month.

Line 9 currently only has 10 trains, all of which are borrowed from Line 1. The city's fast-expanding Metro services are in dire need of trains to boost capacity and reduce rush-hour congestion.

Currently, passengers have to wait up to 12 minutes, during rush hours, or 16 minutes, at other times, for trains to arrive on Line 9.

Another 28 trains have also been ordered for Line 9 and they will gradually arrive during 2009.

The new trains are needed to cater to an expected major increase in passenger flows as the second phase of Line 9 finishes construction and comes into service around the end of next year, extending the route across the downtown area to Pudong.

Shanghai is building or extending eight Metro lines to ensure that by the World Expo the network will be able to handle nearly 5.8 million passengers each day during the six-month event, which starts in May 2010.