Jinan -- Work began on Wednesday to install carriages on a tourist monorail connecting the birthplaces of ancient Chinese thinkers in East China's Shandong province.

According to an agreement signed by the country's leading new energy vehicle maker BYD and Jining city in April 2017, a monorail will connect Qufu -- the hometown of Confucius, with Zoucheng -- the birthplace of Mencius.

Yan Shi, who is in charge of the monorail project, said the carriages have domestically-developed batteries which recycle energy created during braking.

At a cost of 3 billion yuan ($460 million), construction of the 12-km nine-station Zoucheng section of the line was started last year and it is expected to open to traffic this year.

Construction of a 6.2-km section for trial runs is about to be completed by the end of this month.

Trains will run at a maximum speed of 80 km per hour. Over-ground monorails cost less and are less noisy subways.