Beijing buses to be fitted with safety warning systems

BEIJING - New highway buses in Beijing will be equipped with an active safety system that can alert drivers of speeding, incorrect lane changes and other traffic violations, Thursday's Beijing Youth Daily reported.

Buses on highways linking Beijing with Hong Kong and Macao, and Chengde, Hebei Province, are piloting the system, according to Yang Bin, manager of safety service department of Beijing Public Transportation Group.

When the number of the active safety system-equipped buses increases, the road sections with frequent alarms will be tagged and recorded to form a heat map, according to which, the traffic management department can forward warnings to drivers. It will help reduce accidents, said Yang.

In addition, 30 buses for Route One running through downtown Beijing from east to west have been fitted with a blind zone warning system at the front rearview mirror and the rear of the vehicle. When pedestrians or bicycles come too close to the bus, a flashing signal will occur to alert the driver.

The two systems will be promoted in more vehicles in the future, the paper said.

Up until now, Beijing has opened 50 inter-provincial bus lines, carrying 390,000 passengers daily.