Hangzhou has been piloting digital technology to improve the efficiency of the city's buses.

The pilot project involves using big data to determine which stops buses should bypass.

Passengers on the bus line 348 became the city's first group of people to benefit from the pilot.

Before the use of digital technology, the bus line had more than 40 stops. Following the route optimization, the number of total stops has been reduced to 27.

Chen Shicheng, deputy general manager of Hangzhou Public Transportation Group, said that the company has been exploring ways of improving the efficiency of similar bus lines that have many stops.

According to the data collected by the system, the average daily number of passengers getting on and off at stops of Liangzhu, Bianjiatang East and South Mengxinan in Dec 2020 reached 100, and thus these stops were retained.

Those stops with the number of passengers numbering less than 20 were removed in the revamped bus route.

In order to allay the concerns of people who usually board the bus at the cancelled stops, another bus service has been put into operation.

According to representatives at the Hangzhou Public Transportation Group, the piloted project will be implemented on more bus lines in the future.