More than 2,000 public buses in the city are slated to be equipped with an intelligent monitoring system that will enable dispatch centers to better oversee some 86 busy routes by the end of the year, local bus authorities said Sunday.
He Fang, a press officer for Shanghai Ba-Shi Public Transportation Company, said that the move follows success with a pilot that has been testing the system on 1,000 buses citywide since May.
"The real-time information helps dispatchers monitor the situation in a timely manner," he told the Global Times yesterday. "It even allows them to keep tabs on the number of passengers aboard; if one bus becomes too crowded, the dispatcher will know to send out extra buses to divert crowds."
He added that the 14,000 buses remaining of the city's some 23,000 buses, which have yet to be installed with a panic button, will additionally see the task completed by the end of the year.
Also linked into the alarm system monitored by dispatchers in the city, the panic buttons were introduced last year in the name of public safety, after a dozen bus drivers were attacked by passengers while operating their vehicles. The most serious case resulted in the death of a bus driver, nearly a year ago in July.
