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Shandong’s Denser Expressway Network Brings Smoother Travel

Source：Haibao News 11-02-2026 10:00:00

In early October, Zhou Min of a Jinan-based design company drove along the Jinan-Qingdao central line to Qingzhou for a project meeting, experiencing firsthand the steady improvement in expressway travel. Behind that experience is Shandong’s push to build a “Smooth Qilu” expressway network, which has now topped 9,300 kilometers. The province is also pressing ahead with expressway expansion and upgrades. The Qihe-Jinan section of the Beijing-Taipei expressway is China’s first 6-to-12-lane expressway expansion and reconstruction project. Since opening, traffic volume has risen while accidents and congestion have dropped noticeably. Multiple sections have been widened, and speed limits have been raised on some stretches — saving time and cutting costs for logistics. Shandong is accelerating smart expressway development, deploying high-altitude lookout and radar equipment to build an air-ground sensing network. AI automatically identifies anomalies and issues alerts in seconds, pushing the road network’s smoothness rate above 99% and keeping emergency response time within 28 minutes. The province is also promoting joint highway-police patrols and nearby rapid response. Minor accidents are handled quickly via cloud platforms, sharply cutting processing time, while drone patrols further boost efficiency. Next, Shandong will balance new construction with quality improvement. By 2030, it aims to ensure that every county has two expressway connections and every township is within half an hour’s drive of an expressway.