Line 6 serves densely populated areas including residential communities in Jinshazhou, the pedestrian street in Beijing Lu and wholesale markets in Shahe.

The phase one section between Xunfenggang and Changban began to provide service from 28 December 2013 with the exception of Yide Lu and Shahe stations.

A change to longer trains on Line 6 had become unfeasible as it would require modification to stations structures whose construction had been completed.

[10] With the opening of Phase II extending the line from Changban to Xiangxue in late 2016 ridership continues to increase, averaging 850,000 passengers per day as of April 2018.

[11] Since 2017, daily ridership of Line 6 consistently peaks over 1 million passengers per day during high load periods such as holidays.

[3][12][13] Guangzhou Metro has responded to the crowding by decreasing headways and buying supplementary rolling stock to further increase frequencies.

[14] All Line 6 trains had several rows of seats removed to allow for more standees and increase overall capacity.