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Bilingual service in all public transport in 2020

“You are now at......” Recently, in Nr.29 bus that runs on Ningdong Road, the LED screen began to display both Chinese and English for stops. 3 international students at Ningbo University said it was so friendly.

According to the transportation department, it is expected that by 2020, the bilingual voice broadcast for public transportation in the downtown of Ningbo will be completed, and the city's surrounding attractions will be actively promoted to be bilingual, which is convenient for international friends to travel by bus.

During the two sessions of the city in 2019, it is suggested that “Ningbo should build an international language environment and add bilingual stop signs and bilingual broadcast for buses”. This proposal was quickly received by the transportation department who later declared that the bilingual broadcast and bilingual logo display of the main bus lines in the downtown area will be realized within 2019.

Two months have passed, and what has happened? Recently, the Standing Committee of Ningbo Municipal People's Congress organized some representatives of the Municipal People's Congress to inspect the construction of the bus bilingual

public logo system and invited three "guests" of different skin colors to experience it.

At about 2:30 pm on April 29, Nr. 29 bus passed through the west of the City Administrative Center. Joseph, an international student from Uganda, together with representatives of Ningbo Municipal People’s Congress, got on the bus. The car went from west to east and was headed for the high-tech zone along the eastern new city. The next stop was the Municipal Administrative (service) Center. When the bus was about to arrive, the young man listened to the broadcast, and looked at the LED screen on the front windshield.

“Municipal Administrative Center......” Joseph found that besides the Chinese. The display was also synchronized with English prompts.

"My native language is English. I feel very good when I see this." Joseph has been in Ningbo for six years and is half a "Ningbonese" now. But Joseph admits that there are still many troubles in daily travel. "Because I can't read Chinese stop logo, I rarely travel by bus. Occasionally I take the bus, I will read maps in advance, and count the stops one by one."

"A lot of bus line signs do not have bilingual service, and some Chinese characters are so unfamiliar that I cannot understand them at all." Zhu Ying, an international student from Hungary, and Han Wanshi from France, came to Ningbo for less than a year. They hope that more bus lines in Ningbo will have bilingual broadcasts and bilingual arrival tips.

At present, 7 bus lines have been implemented with bilingual services.

During the two sessions of Ningbo in 2019, Yi Minfang, a representative of the Municipal People's Congress, made a proposal in the deliberation of the delegation. Ningbo City should build an international language environment, which specifically mentioned that “the railway station, business center, higher education park, bus stop signs of major scenic spots shall have bilingual stop signs."

At present, the LED screens of 10 bus lines in the urban area have bilingual display, and 7 bus lines have been implemented with bilingual voice service.

In 2020, all bus lines in the main city will have bilingual voice service.

So far, 1023 bus stops in the urban area have bilingual stop signs. The bilingual service has 100% covered Tianyi Square, Old Bund and Ningbo Railway Station. And over 40% of stop signs around the Eastern New City, North-South Higher Education Park, and Tianyi Pavilion-Yuehu Scenic Area have used bilingual service.  

Since the first China-Central and Eastern Europe National Expo will be held in Ningbo in June, in order to further enhance the international image of the bus industry, the city will accelerate the implementation of bilingual voice service in the near future. Next, the main urban area should continue to promote 51 bilingual reporting lines, improve the bilingual coverage of key areas such as the Eastern New City and the North-South Higher Education Park, and facilitate international friends to travel by public transport.

It is estimated that by 2020, the bilingual construction of public transportation in the main city of Ningbo will be completed, and the surrounding attractions of the city will be actively promoted to be bilingual

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