Recently, many citizens in Changsha found that besides mandarin, English has been used to announce the names of bus stops. According to the Changsha Bus Group on September 5, the Changsha Bus Group Operation Company has been preparing for the bilingual announcements of bus stop names since early June. As of September 1st, 279 of the city's 288 bus lines had started to announce bus stop names in English. The rest nine bus lines are testing the service and will start bilingual bus stop announcements soon.

The person in charge of the Changsha Bus Group Operation Company introduced that, at the end of May this year, they received a notice from the superior authority to start bilingual announcements of bus stop names on the city's public buses. They collected the basic information of more than 9,000 bus stations and 288 bus lines in the city, modified the names of bus stations with the same names as subway stations, and then share the information to a professional station announcer company. The company is responsible for the recording work of bus stop name announcements in both Chinese and English.

"Some citizens thought that the English announcement was made by AI, but it was actually recorded by professional announcers from the station announcer company. It conveys more emotion and tone variations than AI," the person in charge of the Changsha Bus Group Operation Company added.

The intervals between some stations are relatively short. Such circumstances may occur: the bus may arrive at a station before the English announcement of the previous station is finished. Concerning this feedback from citizens, they will adjust the content of the announcement to make it more concise.

Source: en.changsha.gov.cn