Shanghai Street View: Subway Prattle 沪经动向：地铁罗嗦报站词

I’ve been looking for a good reason to write about the Shanghai subway ever since launching this Street View column last year, as I’m an avid user of the system and have lots of thoughts about what works well and what could use some improvement. Now I finally have that opportunity with a news report about a survey revealing the most “wasted words” spoken by the system’s gregarious public announcement system.

Before I write more about the results from this amusing poll and add my own thoughts on some of the system’s other quirks, I should start by saying the overall system — the world’s second largest — is quite good. Some of the transfer stations require a bit of walking, but that seems to be the case for many new subway systems opening up in cities throughout China. Apart from that drawback, trains generally come very frequently and there are seldom major delays. And perhaps most importantly, the system’s huge size means that almost any place you might want to go is within 10-15 minutes walking distance of the nearest station.

Now that I’ve given the system the praise it deserves, let’s take a look at the latest report on “The 12 most unnecessary phrases” uttered by the public address system on the Shanghai subway. (Chinese article) The report, based on a survey of riders of the most popular Line 1, points out that many riders find the number and length of subway announcements a bit excessive, with the result that they often miss important information like the name of the next stop.

Topping the list was the information-less welcome that riders receive as the trains leave each station, saying simply “Welcome to the Subway Line 1” (Huanying chengzuo guidao jiaotong yihao xian). That was followed by other similarly useless announcements asking passengers to offer their seats to others in need, and telling people to check the times of the first and last trains each day to avoid inconvenience. One person interviewed for the article pointed out that anyone who wanted to give their seat to an elderly person or someone else in need would almost certainly do that even without the reminder. Similarly, someone who didn’t want to give up their seat was unlikely to change his mind just because of the announcement.

I also agree that the Shanghai subway is a bit long-winded, and its announcements could be much more concise. I attribute the verboseness to the equally long-winded and often meaningless reports that used to come nearly non-stop from loud public speakers set up throughout most major Chinese cities in the first 5 or 6 decades of Communist rule. Those speakers were meant to inform the public and deliver the Party’s latest messages, since most people didn’t own TVs or radios in those days.

Most people learned to ignore the loud noise, and thankfully nearly all the speakers have now been removed in most major cities. But clearly the legacy of long-winded messages lacking much substance continues to live on in some places, including the Shanghai subway.

Before I finish my own long-winded column this week, I would be remiss if I didn’t point out one other feature of the Shanghai subway that also needs to be redesigned or better still eliminated completely. Local commuters will know that I’m talking about the time-wasting and highly inconvenient security scan at each system, similar to the scans people have to go through at the airport.

Until recently, I thought that such systems were required for all subways in China, since the Beijing subway also has a similar system. But I was pleasantly surprised during a recent trip to Guangzhou and Shenzhen to discover that those cities have chosen to follow the lead of nearly all major subways outside of China, which see no need for security scans.

Cynical rumors say that the security scans were added to provide business to a high government official’s relative who owned a security company, though I have no idea if that’s really true. But regardless of the reason, Shanghai should take some initiative with the upcoming change in the nation’s leadership to finally remove these useless and bothersome scanners, Perhaps it could also trim down the length of announcements coming over the subway’s speakers, bringing the system more into line with other major international cities.