Mobile map for Tianjin toilets shows those who need to go, where to go

TIANJIN — Veteran taxi driver Zhu Wenli uses Chinese mobile mapping service Gaode Map not just for planning his route, but also for locating nearby public toilets in North China’s Tianjin municipality.

The popular navigation app owned by AutoNavi Software recently released the 2022 National Public Toilet Atlas, ranking Tianjin among the country’s top 10 cities in terms of the number of public toilets that people can find on its e-map.

“The ranking is the result of combing online searches and navigation data for public toilets from nearly 100 cities last year,” said Shi Wei, head of Gaode Map Products.

China has made solid progress in its “toilet revolution”, which has increased the number of public toilets in cities and helped improve the cleanliness of toilets in rural areas.

With 29 years of taxi-driving experience in Tianjin, Zhu said that before the toilet e-map, he and his passengers risked being stuck in times of need. Since 2018, Tianjin’s municipal authorities have placed QR codes on the doors of public toilets across the city, allowing people to find them on the toilet e-map.

“More than 2,600 public toilets have been included in the program. People can find their locations on their mobile phones at any time,” said Jiao Chunbao, director of the environmental sanitation department of the Tianjin Urban Management Committee. Together with the Ministry of Culture and Tourism, Gaode Map has launched an e-map of tourist toilets, an online mapping service that links 130,000 public toilets at more than 20,000 tourist sites nationwide.

Shi said the company has been refining its search function to show whether restrooms are accessible and if there is parking available.

“Easy access to public toilets is one of the measures of a civilized society. New technology offers convenience in times of need and prevents people from doing something they shouldn’t,” said Zhang Baoyi, with the Tianjin Academy of Social Sciences.