On summer nights, the Bund, Nanjing Road, People's Square, and the City God Temple, double-decker sightseeing buses pass by under the attention of passers-by. Their bodies are painted in bold red or painted Shanghai landmarks in graffiti. The visitors in the car raise a pair of arms and take pictures of the scenery along the way. This picture, in turn, constitutes a flowing landscape that attracts the attention of citizens and other tourists.
On the evening of July 18, after Ms. Liu of Suzhou got off the "Bus Tour" sightseeing bus, the only thought in her mind was "I won't take it a second time"... In the peak tourist season, some tourists reported to the "Liberation Hotline Summer Action" that Shanghai's sightseeing buses "changed their faces" at night, could not understand the route, could not understand the charges, and had no service at all.
Why the night sightseeing bus is so criticized, the Liberation Daily Shangguan news reporter investigated.
40 minutes for sightseeing, 30 minutes for traffic jams
"I thought I could drive to the Nanpu Bridge, but why did I turn around on the Bund and come back?" Ms. Liu took a bus on the BUS TOUR night view light bus on July 18, but she did not expect to be too different from her own ideas.
At about 17:00 in the evening, it was still early in the morning, ms. Liu and her friends wandered to the Bus Tour Sightseeing Bus Bund Station near the statue of Chen Yi. "This car is full, wait for the next one!" You can watch the night view. The shouting came from a man in red overalls, while another staff member was charged with a POS machine. According to the staff, the sightseeing bus route takes 40 minutes, only sits on the upper floor, sits full and goes, 50 yuan a person. Ms. Liu was very impressed after listening to it, and immediately paid, and a "Night Scene Day" ticket was printed out, with the operator "Joe" written on it, and the site was marked as "The Bund (Night)".
△ Receipt for Ms. Liu's night view light bus.
At 17:45, Shanghai B· The E5040 double-decker sightseeing bus is coming. After departure, the sightseeing bus will drive along Zhongshan East 1st and 2nd Road. It was rush hour, and the sightseeing car kept encountering red lights. When you arrive at the 16 shop pier, the sightseeing car turns back to the same road and returns to the starting station at 18:15, and the tour ends.
The distance between one north and one south is only 2.2 kilometers, during which it also encountered 12 traffic lights, and the 40 minutes in the mouth of the conductor were actually blocked on the road for 30 minutes. Ms. Liu felt that she was pitted, and she noticed that there was neither a line map nor a radio broadcast in the car, so she questioned why the sales staff and conductors at the starting point did not introduce the details of the line. The other party was straight-forward: "Our company's 8 cars are here, which is this route." "You don't sit somebody sits!"
△ The Night Line on the Bund involves a range of only 2.2 kilometers.
The reporter planned to buy tickets in advance to experience the field, but found that the common third-party ticketing platform and the official WeChat Mini Program did not provide Bus Tour night scene products priced at 50 yuan. Only the regular 100 yuan "24-hour full line ticket", that is, red, blue, green three different theme routes can be selected to visit, with the ticket on the bus. The reporter noted that the route introduction page of the "24-hour full-line ticket" mentioned that the "Red Line Night Line" operated until 20:00, and there was also a "Bund Night Line" operating until 20:30, and it was marked that it only operated on the Bund. Literally, Ms. Liu's experience seems to coincide with the route of the "Bund NightLine." Since there is no text description of the specific route, the route inquiry function provided is also ineffective, and the reporter intends to visit the field to confirm.
△ Bus Tour only sells full-line tickets on public channels, and the introduction of the Bund night line on the official WeChat Mini Program is very limited.
Pretending to be a mysterious nighttime "hidden route"
At 4 p.m. on July 21, the reporter went to the nearest Bus Tour Nanjing Road New World City station to ask the staff about the night line problem.
As soon as you come out of Exit 19 of People's Square Station at No. 2 Rail Transit, you can see the red Bus Tour large service station, and two people in red overalls are being consulted. On the road next to the service station, a double-decker bus is ready to go. This service station has a large electronic display that shows the route map and operating hours of each of the three theme lines. The last train of the red line was at 17:00, and the reporter looked around and did not see the introduction of the "red line night line" and "Bund night line". In the corner at the bottom right, I only saw a small line of small print - "The red line will operate from May to October, please consult our staff for specific times."
△The night line needs to ask the staff to learn the information.
The staff of the station told reporters that after 17:00, the sale of single night sightseeing tickets will begin. The reporter asked why he did not see the route and time announced. He explained in a mysterious tone that this was a "hidden route", only here and at the Bund two stops, and it took thirty or forty minutes to return to the same place, and the price was 50 yuan. What time does this "hidden route" last train? The other party waved his hand and said that he was not sure, to see if the driver was willing to work overtime, but also to see the needs of tourists, "9 o'clock must be there, yesterday to 11 o'clock!" ”
From the range of routes pointed out by the staff on the map, the red line night line and the Bund night line seem to refer to the "hidden route" starting from Nanjing Road New World City and the Bund. From the 50 yuan Bus Tour night tour ticket card shared by some netizens, the vehicle night tour time is from 17:00 to 19:00, depending on the weather and crowds. A review site also said that the Red Line Night Line operates from 17:00 to 19:00 from Monday to Thursday, and from 17:00 to 21:00 from Friday to Sunday. These information operates at different times, the route is vague, and the "hidden route" brings information asymmetry.
At 19:00, the reporter came to the Night Line station on the Bund. Ms. Liu once rode in the Shanghai B · The E5040 license plate number bus happened to be parked on the side, marked with several popular attractions on the body, and the front electronic screen was marked with the words "Night Tour of the Night Sightseeing Line". However, the stop sign is still a daytime route poster, and there is only one conductor on the scene, taking into account the answers and charges. Tourists came forward to ask for the details of the route, and the conductor's answers were quite brief. The reporter repeatedly asked the location of the route turning point, and the other party always replied that "just go around the Bund". Asked about the tour service, the other party immediately replied "there is no night car." A tourist in Shandong was slightly hesitant after asking, but turned his head and came back to buy 3 photos, "Come and go, it is also good to take a trip to blow the wind."
△Night sightseeing bus of bus tour.
At 19:27, the reporter bought a ticket to get on the bus. The tour map on the first floor has long been empty. On the front of the car on the second floor, there are drink bottles, paper towels and other garbage left by tourists, and the eight rows of open-top seating areas are almost full. At the beginning of the departure, most tourists are excited to take pictures. Since there is no guide headset, the "Eight Chinese Language Translation Service" does not exist, and the introduction of attractions can only be searched on the Internet. Aunt Wu, a Shanghai citizen, took her grandson to ride, and she wanted her grandson to know more about the history of the building, but there was no auxiliary information, "even if there is a simple introduction on the radio." "At night, the Buildings of the Nations and Lujiazui complement each other, but only the roar of the bus engine echoes on the car.
△The night line sightseeing bus does not provide free headphones and does not have an audio guide function. The picture shows the reporter picking up the headphones left by tourists in their seats during the day.
About to arrive at the Sixteen Shops Pier, a man in civilian clothes went up to the second floor and said to the tourists, "Turn around and go back immediately." Someone in the car complained: "Just go back in a circle?" "But no one came forward to theorize. Turning back to the starting site, there is already a long queue outside the Bus Tour site.
△There is a long queue near the double-decker bus stop.
How can it be "flexible" without principles?
Shanghai's sightseeing bus has been developed for more than 10 years, there are three main companies to choose from, namely Bus Tour, City Sightseeing and Shencheng Tourism, the first two of which have a larger scale of operation and more passenger flow, which is the main choice for travelers. The reporter's investigation found that the public information of the night view line is limited, which actually reflects that the sightseeing bus is in a "flexible" mode during the night operation. However, "flexible" is not standardized and lacks transparency, which affects the tourism experience of tourists to a certain extent.
In the case of the "City Sightseeing" bus, its night view line is also a one-way ticket, around the Bund, Yu Garden, People's Square, Nanjing Road for about 40 minutes of tour, can not get off the bus halfway, the end will return to the original station. However, the night view line departing from each attraction seems to be operated independently, and the ending time varies. For example, the city sightseeing bus at the Baidu station outside the Bund and the Nanjing Road Century Square station has been suspended at 21:30; the east station of Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street has been operating until 22:30, and the conductor of the station replied to reporters, "The latest opening to what time can not be guaranteed, the driver is an overtime bus, willing to drive to what time to drive to what time." ”
This kind of "maybe head" operation method can easily lead to disputes, such as when Mr. Yu, a Shanghai citizen, took a friend to play, because the driver verbally changed the departure time at will, and the two sides had a dispute. Another example is that there is no real-time departure schedule, and Ms. Wu in Suzhou missed the last train because she went to the toilet. Near the evening, the operating hours of the daytime line and the night line overlap, and many tourists cannot distinguish between them, and it is easy to be unhappy due to misunderstandings.
In terms of price announcement, of the three sightseeing bus companies, only Shencheng Tourism clearly marked the price of the night view line on the stop sign. There is even a price difference between the fares of the various stations of the city sightseeing tour bus: the east side of Nanjing Road Pedestrian Street and the Nanjing Road Century Square station are sold for 50 yuan, and the ticket price of the Baidu Bridge station on the Bund is 60 yuan. The conductor explained: "In addition to taking the car, I also give you a ticket for the Bund Sightseeing Tunnel, which usually sells for 50 yuan a piece, you can go if you want to go, don't go, don't count." ”
On July 22, the reporter called the city tourism service hotline to inquire about the operation of the night view line, and the male staff of the connection insisted that "we do not have a night view line", saying that the "city sightseeing" bus running at night was a shuttle bus that temporarily increased according to the passenger flow after 18:00. The reporter wanted to ask about the specific fare and route, and the other party said: "No, you still have to ask other families"!
"The double-decker bus is about to be scrapped, and I can't sit there in the future!" In front of the sightseeing bus shouting conductors have put the scarcity of double-decker buses as a selling point, Hunan Changde tourist Ms. Lu and friends from morning to night sat many times, she sighed, although the appearance of the vehicle is bright, but its roof, seats are quite old, more Chinese explanation system, audio guide sometimes faulty, along the way to give away propaganda leaflet information presented very little. In her eyes, since the sightseeing bus is a business card of Shanghai's urban tourism, it should be more carefully and meticulously built.
Column Editor-in-Chief: Mao Jinwei Text Editor: Che Jiannan
Source: Author: Che Jianan Wu Danlu