App helps 100k people locate nearest public toilet
A China cloud platform has helped 100,000 people find the nearest public bathrooms when they were in need, but citizens called for an improvement in the environment.
The Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development launched the platform in November 2017, the platform’s director, who requested anonymity, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
More than 100,000 users nationwide have registered on the app, which has helped them find a public bathroom over 500,000 times, data the director provided shows.
China has launched a “toilet revolution” campaign to regulate the country’s public toilets and make them cleaner, and the cloud platform is part of the campaign.
The app would automatically locate the user on a map and provide the location and information of public bathrooms within two to five kilometers.
Data provided by the platform shows most users come from major cities and regions such as Beijing, Shanghai, South China’s Guangdong Province, East China’s Fujian Province and Shandong Province.
More functions will be added to the app, such as each bathroom’s real-time flow rate, “which is supposed to reduce lines in bathrooms in popular spots,” the director said.
However, citizens are not only concerned with the number of public bathrooms.
Chen Xi, a 32-year-old mother from Beijing, told the Global Times that she remains concerned about the condition of public bathrooms.
“Toilet paper is available in no more than a third of the bathrooms I went to,” Chen said.
“While bathrooms at popular spots have good sanitary conditions, those located in hutong remain insufficient,” Chen said.
Among the 330,000 public bathrooms nationwide, only a small percentage of them provide free toilet paper, while the situation is better in urban areas such as Shanghai and Guangzhou, the director said.
Beijing is planning to upgrade 300 hutong public bathrooms in back streets and alleyways within the year, equipping them with air conditioners and odor filters, Beijing-based newspaper Legal Mirror reported.