Hardworking personnel vow to provide quality public bus services

More than 160,000 staff members from the Beijing Public Transport Corporation are committed to provide a quality service. [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

Beijing's public bus service is one of the most extensive, widely used and affordable forms of public transport of the Chinese capital. In 2018, more than three billion individual journeys were made on its entire bus network.

More than 160,000 staff work in the sector to make sure it provides a satisfactory service. A huge team of professionals such as coordinators, mechanics and emergency repair technicians are dedicated to offer the services that passengers care about the most.

There are far more than the bus drivers and conductors who give us the public face of the service. In this edition of Selfie, we talk to some staff members who represent their hardworking coworkers.

Zhang Hongmei has been a bus conductor with the company for nearly 25 years. [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

It's 2:20 in the morning. The ring breaks the silence of the night. Zhang Hongmei turns off her alarm clock. It's another regular work day for her. She lets herself stay in bed for another ten minutes, and then she must get up and go to work before 3:30am.

Zhang has been a bus conductor with the Beijing Public Transport Corporation for nearly 25 years. A few years ago, after some bus routes were optimized, she was transferred to line 1. This internal job transfer resulted in a much longer commute.

"It is really difficult to get up so early in the morning. Most people are still sound asleep. Before I leave my house, I have to have some breakfast. It is quite a physically intense job being a conductor. If I didn't have anything, I would feel dizzy and weak after a couple of hours' work."

Normally arriving at the terminus at 4:40, Zhang has to do some paperwork before she starts her first trip, like signing the code of conduct after carefully going through all the terms. She then gets on the bus and starts cleaning it, to make it nice for her passengers.

Zhang says being a bus conductor requires multitasking skills, especially during peak hours. She is responsible for issuing tickets and giving advice on destinations, helping drivers operate safely in congested areas, and attending passengers when they need help.

Having worked in this role for more than two decades, Zhang has witnessed how modern technologies have shaped her work and how its efficiency has improved.

Last monthly paper tickets were issued in April, 2006. [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

In the first few years of her career, monthly paper tickets were widely used. Unlike the public transport chip cards that are used across the nation nowadays, passengers had a strip of paper tickets pasted to the bottom of their rectangular bus card and they would be worn around their necks. The bus conductor was able to easily identify if the ticket had been renewed on time from its distinctive color and pattern. This method was used for more than eight decades, beginning in 1924. People born between the nineteen sixties and nineties view these tickets as forms of nostalgia.

Public transport chip cards have substituted for monthly paper tickets since 2006. [Photo: IC]

In 2006, public transport chip cards were introduced as a substitute for the monthly paper tickets. It was a pay-as-you-go, preloaded card, and passengers were entitled to certain discounts depending on what the individual spent on public transport in the city each month. Most passengers saw it as an alternative to using cash on the bus. It was more convenient for them to pay their fare simply by scanning their card on the reader.

Since 2014, a smart phone application called "Beijing Yikatong" has been available, so passengers no long need to take public transport card with them. [Photo: from IC]

As mobile payment has become prevalent and people can use a smart phone to pay for a wide range of services and products in China, the public transport system is also taking advantage of its popularity. Since 2014, a smart phone application called "Beijing Yikatong" has been available. Commuters need to download it from their app store, install it on their mobile device, and create a virtual card account by providing their identification. They can pay the fee with their virtual card account or WeChat Pay, a mobile payment app developed by a Chinese tech. It means passengers no longer need to take a public transport card with them.

Zhang Hongmei explains passengers can also get information from the application about the time the next bus is due to arrive, as well as the current location of that bus.

"Before, if people were waiting at the bus station for quite a long time, sometimes they would complain to us. The first thing we did was to apologize and then explain to them what was causing the delay, for example road works, road closures or maybe a car accident. Nowadays, it's possible for them to know exactly how long they'll have to wait for, and if they need to plan ahead and take other forms of transport, they can. The information on this app is very accurate."

Zhu Dapeng has been a bus driver for more than a decade. [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

Zhu Dapeng is Zhang Hongmei's co-worker. He's been a bus driver for more than a decade, and has successfully driven 220,000 safe miles. Like Zhang, Zhu is covering the first three earliest shifts. Every day, he drives the early birds to their destinations.

As well as a routine inspection of their vehicle, bus drivers in Beijing must pass an alcohol breath test before they start working. This is to help protect the safety of the passengers and other people on the road.

"We all have a personal ID card. Before we take the test, we scan it on the machine to activate it so it's ready to record the results. The entire procedure is monitored on a camera, and the footage can be obtained if it's ever needed."

Bus development in the country [Photo: from China Plus]

In the past few decades, the vehicles themselves have also developed hugely. All buses these days have automatic transmission, which Zhu says makes it much easier to operate them. Compared with twelve years ago, working conditions have become a lot more comfortable. Zhu recalls.

"When I was an intern driver, the bus didn't have air conditioning. Its engine was at the front, right next to the driver. The engine temperature kept rising while it was running on the road. You can imagine in summer, it was scorching inside the bus, like being inside a steamer. If the engine was about to overheat, the driver and conductor had to bring a huge bottle of water and pour it into the vehicle's radiator to cool it down. I will never forget the feeling of my face being exposed to the hot steam when I opened the tap of the engine."

Zhang Ying is a bus dispatcher with the company [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

Zhang Ying is a bus dispatcher and has been doing this job for about a decade. She explains the role she plays in the entire bus operation system.

"The dispatcher is like a commander at a bus terminus. I work closely with bus drivers, conductors and mechanics. My duty is to coordinate the movements of the buses entering and leaving each station on time, remember the schedules and guarantee the operation is on track. We are also the direct contact when passengers make a phone call for help."

Zhang's hours are irregular, usually working for 24 hours before taking the next two days off. She says she can't finish work until all the buses have been parked in the right places, so she doesn't normally get to sleep until after midnight, when everything is in order, which means she has just three or four hours of sleep before she has to get up again at 4 am, before other crew arrives.

As a dispatcher, she is also responsible for carefully observing the bus drivers' condition, both emotionally and physically. Since it is a high-risk job, they are under a huge amount of pressure being responsible for the safety of passengers and also having a strict time limit for finishing each trip. After doing this job for such a long time, Zhang says she has developed a good sense in noticing when things aren't right.

"It just needs me to be vigilant and pay attention to details. For example, if someone who is usually very talkative and outgoing suddenly becomes quiet one day, this kind of change alerts me. I need to figure out why this person is upset and then decide if he or she needs to take a day off. This helps prevent accidents from happening."

Currently, nearly 94 percent of buses in Beijing are green energy vehicles. Making sure that vehicles are charged at the right times has also become one of Zhang's responsibilities. The terminus that she works at doesn't have any charging stations, and drivers need to drive for around 30 minutes to the nearest one. This means her coordination skills have to be tip-top. It's her duty to prevent accidents, or vehicles breaking down on the road and causing a long delay for passengers.

When electric buses were first used in the public transport sector in Beijing, it took Zhang approximately two weeks to make adjustments.

"At first, we had a specific file to record the electric consumption of each bus and the corresponding traffic conditions. The remaining energy was carefully recorded at the beginning and at end of each trip. And then, I gradually got to know how much electricity each bus and each driver needed for each trip in peak hours and other periods of the day. Season is another influential factor. In summer and winter periods, more electricity is consumed because heating and air conditioning are used. To be a good dispatcher you need to think carefully and thoroughly or vehicles would go out of use."

In 2012, the rain in Beijing was so heavy that several roads had to be closed for safety reasons. Many buses couldn't make it back to the terminus and had to park at the side of the road until the rain diminished enough. It was the most challenging night of Zhang's career as a bus dispatcher.

"I had to make sure I was able to assign the last bus that day. Some roads in the city were blocked and many buses couldn't get back, and I didn't know how long they would have to wait outside. The only thing I could do was to expand the time that buses could depart from the terminus. I received a lot of calls from passengers asking if there would be another bus coming. I understood they just wanted to take the bus and go home. I told them that I really didn't have any buses at the terminus and then apologized for the inconvenience and hoped they could understand that we were all doing our best in the severe weather."

Zhang Ying says it's not just extreme weather that can cause the roads to close. Marathons being held, bicycle races – there are all sorts of reasons for disruption. But in these cases at least there is advance warning, which is key to better preparation.

"During these sports events, dispatchers are placed at different spots along the route of the race and send real-time information back to the dispatcher in the office. This is how they are able to know how long the competition is going to take and make adjustments to the schedules. We need to ensure the competition does not affect passengers who need to commute normally."

Gao Yang has been a mechanic with the company for 15 years. [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

Gao Yang has been a mechanic with the company for 15 years. His main duty is to fix broken buses and maintain vehicles regularly.

"Our team is responsible to keep nearly 1300 buses in our company to operate well. Each month we make a plan to maintain these vehicles and we also fix additional buses if it is needed urgently. In summer, although it is hot outside, we have to wear another layer of clothes to prevent ourselves from burning of the vehicle. Our work determines that we cannot have a decent appearance at work."

Sha Jin has been an emergency repair technician for 20 years. [Photo: courtesy of Beijing Public Transport Corporation]

Sha Jin, Gao's colleague, has been an emergency repair technician for 20 years. He is responsible to fix buses if they break down on the road.

"The driver will call me and tell me what causes the malfunction, so I know what tools and components I need to take with me. I remember once a bus broke down at the roadside and we could not open the cover of the engine. My co-worker and I tried to push the bus but failed. It was way too heavy. It was a rainy day. When we eventually managed to fix it, we were both soaking wet."

The bus driver, conductor, dispatcher and automobile mechanics we interviewed in this program are just a few representatives of the 160,000 employees from the Beijing public bus service. For decades, they and their fellow workers have contributed to maintain a strict standard of the city's public transport system with their dedication and team spirit. As modern technology keeps on changing our lives, they believe that this standard of excellence will stay the same, as the company slogan puts it: "Whenever you're on the road, we're always with you to provide the service that you care about most".