BEIJING, Sept. 14 -- The number of passenger trips via China's urban rail transit networks soared 38.4 percent year on year, official data showed.

A total of 2.71 billion passenger trips were handled by China's urban rail transit networks in 54 cities last month, up 1.7 percent over the previous month, according to the Ministry of Transport.

The ministry said the figure also jumped 36 percent from the average monthly level in 2019.

China had 297 urban rail transit lines at the end of August, with a combined operation length of 9,771.8 km.