BEIJING, Aug. 4 -- The number of passenger trips handled by China's urban rail transit networks surged 36.4 percent year on year in July, official data showed.

A total of 2.66 billion passenger trips were made via China's urban transit networks in 54 cities last month, representing a monthly increase of 9.2 percent, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The figure was also 33.8 percent higher than the average monthly level in 2019, the data revealed.

At the end of July, China had 296 urban rail transit lines in operation, with a total length of 9,743.5 km, according to the ministry.