The first ever customized bus route—going between Sangtiandao and Yangguangcheng Lijingwan, Luzhi, had first run recently.
Thanks to a crowd-funded project on a platform called “Bus Manager”, people in Suzhou can customize their own bus route. Ms. He initiated the bus route going between Sangtiandao and Yangguangcheng Lijingwan, Luzhi, and shared the project in the property owner’s chat group. In two days, she got over 100 people to join in the crowd-fund.
“Flexibility is the most outstanding feature of customized buses,” said Wang Chuanlin, head of the transportation section of Wuzhong Bus Company. As a public transportation service choice filling the gap between conventional buses and taxis, customized buses are a multi-person shared means of transportation, designed for people in the same area, with the same set-off time, and the same travel needs.
It is not time-consuming to start a customized bus route. According to Wang, a normal bus route gets administrative approval within 15 working days, while a customized bus route gets approval in 3 days at the quickest.
Additionally, a customized bus route takes mainly the shortest-possible route, which differs from normal buses. Taking the bus route between Sangtiandao and Yangguangcheng Lijingwan, Luzhi, as an example, the total distance between the two stops is 8.6km. For such a distance, there are usually 20 bus stops set up for a normal bus route. With a two minute-average running time between each stop, the whole trip would take 40 minutes. But the customized bus route only set one stop along the way—Weile Garden, making the total travel time roughly 25 minutes.
What’s more, the start time and frequency of a customized bus route are also decided by its users. “As long as all passengers agree to it, the bus sets off whenever the passengers want,” said Wang.
As can be seen from the most demanded routes initiated by the public on the Bus Manager platform, the starting point and end point of the bus routes are mostly residential compounds and office buildings that are far away from subway stations.
Currently, the operation cost for Suzhou buses is 7,000 to 9,000 yuan per kilometer on average. After some time of operating the customized bus routes, the bus company will determine whether to keep them and expand the service based on the real number of passengers of the routes and the financial implication of keeping them.
According to the “Bus Manager”, two customized bus routes have opened up to now.
