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Beijing Optimizes its Bus Lines

On April 14, 2007, under the city’s 2007 New Bus Lines Optimization Plan, 24 bus routes were removed from the city’s bus map, 12 routes were adjusted and 40 new ones were opened.

The new plan, put forward by Beijing Public Transport Holdings Limited Company, will withdraw nine bus lines from Chang’an Jie as they overlap with each other at 42 bus stations; 15 routes that require left-turns will change or disappear. The Beijing Railway Station will lose three bus routes, and the Beijing West Railway Station will lose five.

This is the fifth time Beijing has rerouted its public transit lines. The plan’s main goals are to “lessen the burden on the central area and open new lines around the rim of the urban core.” The lines will connect the city’s ringed roads with their surrounding neighbourhoods. More than 100 residential districts, including Baiziwan, Wanquansi and Fangzhuang, will benefit from the optimization.

Beijing also founded a Traffic Emergency Commander Centre on April 2. The centre can receive 3,600 message feeds through 13 traffic departments. This year, 3,600 more traffic monitors will be installed, doubling the current capacity. “Before the Olympics, the number of traffic monitors will exceed 10,000,” said Li Haiyi, director of the newly built centre.

The monitors will be installed mainly in buses along Chang’an Jie, on subway cars, in long-distance buses and traffic hubs. Most of the city will be covered by traffic surveillance. Different areas’ traffic departments are using their own messages. After the centre is built, signals from bus traffic, rail traffic, highways or even airlines will be combined.

The centre will use some of the world’s most modern equipment, including a “traffic emergency commander car,” a mobile unit that can monitor traffic situations 3 to 20 kilometres away.