Wuhan City is preparing to re-open six key subway lines to the public on Saturday as travel bans are lifted across central China's Hubei province, with the epidemic situation in China's worst hit area continuing to improve.

The city, which bore the brunt of the COVID-19 outbreak in China, will re-open the routes after conducting five days of consecutive test runs on the trains.

After services were suspended for more than two months, staff of the Wuhan Subway Group are hard at work cleaning and disinfecting every corner of the city's mass transit system, ensuring stations and train carriages are safe for passengers when it opens back up for service.

The subway, which forms an important part of Wuhan's public transit system, was shut down on January 23 when the city was officially locked down to contain the spread of the outbreak.

With the situation improving in Wuhan, transit authorities decided to restart subway services to meet the public demand for commuting.

However, virus prevention remains a top priority and subway authorities are taking every necessary precaution to make sure all passengers who enter stations and board trains will be safe.

Infrared temperature sensing systems have been installed at subway stations which will detect the temperatures of all those seeking to enter. Passengers also need to scan a special health certificate obtained via a QR code after entering the station and only those with “green” health codes will be allowed to get on the subway, according to the Wuhan Subway Group.

The re-opening of the subway comes as more railway services are beginning to resume operations in Hubei, with the first trains arriving and departing on Wednesday.

Inbound trains are also set to start arriving in 17 train stations across Wuhan from Saturday, the China Railway Wuhan Group said, while services departing Wuhan will resume on April 8.