BEIJING, Dec. 20 (Xinhua) — Braving the chilly winter morning, Guo Changyi, a bus driver for Beijing Public Transport, arrived on the firm workplace earlier than dawn to examine and clear the bus and regulate its inside temperature.
Precisely on the scheduled time at 6:55 a.m., Guo’s bus arrived at a cease on Chaoyang Road in Beijing’s Chaoyang District to choose up pupils heading to Hujialou Central Primary School, about six kilometers away.
This tailored direct bus route gives handy and environment friendly transportation for main and center college college students within the Chinese capital who journey between their communities and campuses with out being accompanied by their mother and father. The service additionally helps alleviate visitors congestion and parking difficulties round faculties throughout rush hours, usually attributable to mother and father driving their kids to and from college.
Beijing launched the service in September 2023 to handle city visitors congestion. Through the joint efforts of native authorities, together with schooling and transportation departments, over 300 such bus routes have been launched, transporting 23,000 college students and oldsters every day, in accordance with the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport. The service can be accessible to oldsters who accompany their younger kids.
The devoted bus service displays Beijing’s new strategy to city governance. In 2019, Beijing, residence to over 20 million residents, launched an revolutionary “swift response to public complaints” initiative geared toward addressing public considerations promptly and resolving on a regular basis challenges effectively.
The initiative has built-in greater than 60 hotline companies right into a single unified hotline quantity — 12345 — which serves as the first channel for residents to voice their considerations.
Operating 24/7, the hotline is staffed by over 1,700 operators who work in shifts to handle calls and deal with requests masking almost each side of city life, together with transportation, housing, schooling, healthcare, employment and enterprise companies.
According to official information, up to now six years, Beijing has processed roughly 150 million public complaints, with each the decision and satisfaction charges reaching almost 97 p.c.
PEOPLE-CENTERED URBANIZATION
“The Beijing 12345 hotline dates back to 1987 with only one telephone and three operators,” mentioned Wang Yue, an official of the Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center.
According to Wang, within the Nineteen Eighties, dozens of enormous and medium-sized cities throughout China arrange mayor’s hotline companies, which had been regularly unified into 12345 authorities hotlines round 2000.
“There were hotlines before, why didn’t people call more often? Because even if you do call, the problem usually didn’t get solved,” mentioned Liu Huan, an operator of Beijing’s 12345 hotline, including that the enchantment of the hotline service lies within the swiftness in addressing individuals’s considerations.
Once a grievance is filed via Beijing’s 12345 hotline, it’s promptly forwarded to related authorities departments and public service corporations for decision. The consequence is then evaluated by the complainants, guaranteeing lively engagement, evaluation and oversight within the metropolis’s governance by the general public.
“The swift response to public complaints has significantly raised the awareness of staff at all levels to better serve the people,” mentioned Yao Lei, director of the Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center. “In particular, those directly providing services to citizens and the business community have made significant improvements in their work style.”
As Beijing continues to refine and enhance the mechanism, employees on the 12345 hotline, together with native authorities, are shifting from merely reacting to calls to proactively fixing issues.
Since 2021, Beijing has used huge information evaluation to establish key considerations of the residents and launched focused month-to-month tasks, equivalent to putting in elevators in outdated buildings, facilitating property possession certificates functions, and upgrading visitors lights.
Over the previous 4 years, Beijing has addressed greater than 60 classes of points via particular governance tasks, finishing over 1,800 duties and introducing 400 insurance policies, in accordance with Sun Fang, deputy director of the Beijing municipal bureau of presidency service and information administration.
“I want to call 12345 again to thank everyone involved in resolving my issue,” mentioned Yang Jiansheng, a resident of Xicheng District. Yang had beforehand contacted the hotline to complain about failing to acquire his property possession certificates for a home he bought over a decade in the past. Thanks to concerted efforts by all concerned events, Yang lately acquired his certificates.
“CHINESE SOLUTION”
Over the years, “Need help? Dial 12345” has turn out to be a catchphrase amongst Beijing residents. With the rising reputation of the hotline service, even foreigners select to show to it for assist.
“We often receive phone calls from foreigners in Beijing, mostly consulting about visa extensions and work permits, as well as other aspects of life in the city,” mentioned Wang Shuo, an English operator of Beijing’s 12345 hotline.
According to the Beijing Citizen Hotline Service Center, the foreign-language companies at the moment are accessible in English, French, German, Russian, Spanish, Arabic, Japanese and Korean.
Gleisi Hoffmann, president of Brazil’s Workers’ Party, praised Beijing’s 12345 hotline throughout a go to to the middle in April. She mentioned the platform that integrates assets and energy from all events embodies the Communist Party of China’s philosophy and function of placing the individuals first and serving the individuals wholeheartedly.
“The 12345 is a successful example of meeting people’s needs and solving complex problems in modern megacities. You have inspired all of us,” Andreas Grammatikogiannis, deputy mayor of Athens, mentioned when addressing the 2024 Beijing Forum on Swift Response to Public Complaints, which was held from Wednesday to Thursday.
“The Beijing hotline integrates the human touch with the technological component. I think this is part of the wonderful innovation of the Beijing model,” mentioned Erik Nilsson, an editor at China Daily, on the discussion board.
An analysis report on world metropolis hotline companies and governance effectiveness, launched throughout the discussion board, highlights Beijing’s distinctive governance mannequin, characterised by whole-process suggestions, complete companies and citizen participation. This strategy gives a “Chinese solution” to the worldwide city governance reform centered on metropolis hotline companies, the report mentioned.