SHANGHAI - Partly because of a string of malfunctions and the July 23 train crash in Wenzhou, the Beijing-Shanghai high-speed railway was not as popular in its first month of operation as many had expected.

In a news release on Monday, the Ministry of Railways said the railway had transported 5.26 million passengers from July 1 to July 31, or 170,000 passengers a day on average.

And an average of 179 trains - including both those that run at 200 km/h and at 300 km/h trains - were on the line every day, and the trains had an occupancy rate of 107 percent, the ministry said.