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You're listening to Roundtable with myself, He Yang. I'm joined by Yushan and Steve Hatherly in the studio. Coming up, what if you could design your own bus route like ordering takeout? Well, kinda. Pick the time, the stop, and even the fellow passengers. Shanghai's doing just that. Could this reshape how we think about public transport? And...
Perhaps to a certain age, we all had that one object we couldn't let go of. An old stuffed toy, a threadbare blanket, maybe even a cracked coffee mug. It's not that stuff.
It's not just stuff. It's comfort. It's our ah-bay-bay. Do you still have one? Our podcast listeners can find us at Roundtable China on Apple Podcasts. From the world of entertainment to what fuels your passion, our heart-to-heart segment is all about you. Share your thoughts with us at roundtablepodcast at qq.com.
Or better yet, record a voice memo. We'd love to hear your voice. Now let's move on to the next topic discussion today.
Subways are speedy. Private cars give you comfort. Ride hailing's perfect when you're in a rush. And shared bikes? Great for fresh air and quick trips. Getting around the city has never been easier. But as we've shared with you on previous shows, city buses in many parts of China have been struggling to stay afloat, losing passengers to all these new options. Now, instead of cutting routes
Some cities are taking a new route. Literally. In Shanghai, commuters can suggest and vote on new bus lanes through an app. If enough people back it, a brand new route can launch in just three days.
And how is it done? Well, that's all done by Shanghai's newly rolled out policy on designing this whole new kind of public bus operation system. And it's designed by commuters, bus riders themselves. And it was launched only when enough riders requested. So what we're talking about are customized bus routes.
that can be used to drop off kids at school in the early morning or send seniors to the hospital based on advanced booking system and also send the suburban commuters to the metro in a faster way and even take families to visit ancestral graves. That's a bit less common. Those are all the things you can do. You can do more things, by the way. That's not the complete list of four opportunities you have.
Yep. Actually, I heard that this whole customized bus thing is not entirely new. It's been around for a few years. But what's new in Shanghai is that, this is according to a recent article by Shanghai Observer, they noted that there was a special section called
customized buses launched on May the 8th, 2025 in the app or on WeChat or the WeChat mini program called 随身行, the 身 as in the second name of Shanghai. So it can be literally translated into follow Shanghai. And residents in Shanghai, they can check the current customized bus routes
and their operation time and file the application of a route they design, like when they want it to start and end, how they prefer it to operate through what time of the day and how frequent you need the trip to be, all that stuff. They can file it in and help the city builders to decide if it's worthy to design.
set up such a new line based on the request. I actually looked on to the mini app this morning and it was... For the Beijing one? Actually for the Shanghai one as we spoke. And there's a list of new routes proposed by local people. Some are participated by only two to three people agreeing that yes, it's worth building a new line based on how it's suggested here. And I want to add this and this and that. Some
like one between a community named Xu Huicheng. And it's from Xu Huicheng to the Shanghai International Studies University affiliated bilingual school in Baoshan. That's in North Shanghai, as far as I know. So that line attracted 253 people voting for it.
saying that I want this, I want this from what time to what time and here are my suggestions on how this whole route can make our life easier. So this is happening. Yeah, so you go into the app and then you either vote on someone else's proposal or you design your own proposal. If you design your own proposal and they say typically 15 to 20 passengers per trip, so
I guess, fewer than that number of people, then it wouldn't get approved. But if you get the numbers, then they design it. They actually do it. That's why they call this a customized bus route. And they do it within three days. This is awesome. Yeah. And Shanghai.
does stuff very efficiently. And that you've got to just give it to those people. They're making decisions and implementing decisions. And just sort of to offer a little caveat, possibly because the survey was done during
when Tomb Sweeping Festival was taking place soon. And that's why there was that little example of going to visit your family member's ancestral grave. And usually these places are...
Sticking with that note, okay, are a little bit further out than city center. So it's usually a little bit more expensive if you take a taxi there. And it's great if there's a bus route there. But I also think about this and realize you don't need to visit that often. So when you're usually, when people are customizing the bus routes, it's
I wonder if they're thinking about the frequency. Is this a place I'm visiting every day, such as like going to work or dropping my kid off? That's on every workday, I would think. So it makes sense if the frequency is high. But if this is like a one time thing, then it probably doesn't really make all that sense to customize a bus route for the day.
What do you guys think? Well, I mean, obviously, I've never used it. I've never done it myself. But it's popular in Shanghai. They've launched over 220 routes, different routes, different customized routes. And it's all over the city, all over the 16 city districts. And it's proven to be really popular with people. My assumption would have been...
Well, this would be really difficult to accomplish. I thought so, too. Nobody wants to go where I go, I would think, right? Really? Maybe you're more mainstream than you thought. But it's so specific to people's lives. Yeah, it is. Right? It is. So my assumption would have been, oh, okay, well, if I want to design a bus route that's specific to my life...
how am I going to find 20 other people who need exactly what I need? Well, not exactly, but at least somewhere along the way. But it turns out that that's exactly what's happening. Yeah. That's a very keen observation from the bus rider's side. But from the city builder's side, what they want to do is...
on a more general basis, which is to call on for supporting city bus companies to fully utilize their transport capacity to run customized routes for commuting, school travel, and medical appointments, et cetera, et cetera, in order to improve the, say, the general livability of this whole city. So that's all coming back to an opinion, a policy opinion that's published in
October 2023. And also there's been the new regulations on urban public transportation, which took effect on December the 1st in 2024, which clearly state that under the premise of ensuring basic public travel, urban public transport companies, they are allowed to offer customized travel services.
to you know, just people who wants a shorter or quicker trip between A to B. And if you're wondering how much it costs, the fares are market-based. So what that means is there's no discounts that are currently offered for students. Students sometimes, right, when they take the bus they can qualify for a discount or seniors or other groups, but not in this case.
There was another report from the paper that talked about the fact that they could optimize the allocation of laborers and buses by improving the public transportation network, like reducing the buses on routes with low passenger volumes and also during periods with surplus capacity. So, for example, in one particular area,
A bus route originally required 10 vehicles maybe to meet the service demands, but passenger flows change, right? And as that passenger flow changes, part of the route can be shortened and then vehicle turnover can increase. And this allows the route to be operated with just eight buses.
And then what happens with those extra two buses? Well, they can be redeployed to run customized bus services. It's all about optimizing the efficiency. Yeah, you're right, Yushan. I gave the opinion from a rider's point of view. From the city's point of view, they're thinking, well, at certain parts of the day, if this...
if we have 10 buses, for example, allocated for this route, but nobody's using them between, I don't know, 2 and 5 p.m., for example, well, then let's take out some buses and use them more efficiently. It's a smart idea. Yeah, it is a smart idea. But if you look at if this idea has been floating around for almost a decade now and the technology empowering it has been around for some time as well, but it hasn't become accurate.
as popular as everybody's doing it or you know somebody is doing it it hasn't gotten to that point so what do you think has sort of impeded its popularity because when this originally came out everybody was like I love this idea but in reality people aren't using it as often so what what
What's the discrepancy there? Well, this is also according to the paper, which reported that sometimes these customized buzz servers, they face a certain mismatch between supply and demand. And for buzz companies, it is sometimes difficult to grasp
passengers' travel needs and conducting offline surveys. These are all time-consuming labors. And of course, those who say they need the bus to go their way, they may not actually take it at last. They'll probably just take it like once per month or once in a while. So that's a huge mismatch. Or they might not use it at all.
Yeah, exactly. Things change during the day. You never know what's going to happen, right? So for a lot of these citizens, they know that there is such benefit that they can get for customizing buses, but some of them just simply have limited awareness of customized buses. Yeah, that was going to be my question too. Do people know this exists? Do they know that it's available? And maybe even more importantly, do they know how to do it? You know, if we think about who commonly takes public transportation during the day, well,
Well, students do in the morning. Okay. People going to work and what have you, but also the elderly. And do they know about this? Do they know how to do it? That's a fair question, perhaps. Perhaps. And often during the day, it is indeed the seniors who enjoy the buses. And usually they don't need to pay for it once they're above a certain age. And...
Some would argue that they're enjoying the regular bus rides already. And do they need a custom or customized bus route? Well, maybe they do, but it might be difficult to figure out, especially also, even if it's as fast as three days ahead of time in Shanghai.
Maybe for everyday people, it's kind of something of an extra hurdle that you don't really want to go through. I was just about to say, do people even want to go through this? Because first you have to design the route yourself. If you don't find one that's vote worthy for your needs, you've got to design it. You've got to go in the app. You've got to do this. You've got to do that. Then you've got to check back, right? And see if you get enough votes. Yeah. And so...
in the meantime you could just figure out another way to get to where you need to go three days later so it might not be worth the trouble what's that English expression the juice might not be worth the squeeze oh yeah it sounds like a big
three day ahead of time squeeze. Yeah. So, you know, do you guys like this idea? Do you see a future of this to continue to expand or maybe it'll just gradually fade away, just like the popularity of public buses in general? But I'm not I'm not saying that people aren't using buses anymore. It's just the heyday of public buses seem to have passed in big cities in China. Well, I do hope it stays because
Like the example I raised earlier, there is this faraway school in northern Shanghai linked to a community. And what if, let's say, what if there are students or people going to work or study in that school, in that university, and just need that extra facility?
few miles or kilometers to travel, but they don't have it right now, so they have to walk or so they have to call a cab that's going to cost them more. Let's imagine if such thing exists for them, it's going to help them in so many ways. And the highlight for why we're discussing about this topic again today is that this launch of the service platform in Shanghai is significant in that it uses digital and big data tools to facilitate transportation
facilitate timely and convenient matching for supply and demand. So with the technology being used here, I think it's going to be faster and easier for people to operate, design, submit their request, and get the result, a timely result, after it's submitted. So to me, it's still helpful. Yeah, I think it's new possibilities for urban mobility, right? You gave the example where 225 passengers arrived
voted for one particular route. Now, for every route that gets suggested in the app,
99% of them might not get picked up. But for city officials and bus route designers, they might think, oh, we didn't realize citizens can really take advantage of that route. Maybe we can make this a permanent fixture. So I think it gives the opportunity for citizens to let public officials know through an app that, hey, this is something that could be really useful for us. Yeah. Also, just a quick...
I said that the heyday of the public bus might have passed. What I meant is the heyday of profitability of public buses has passed. And the problem why the companies are struggling is simply because they're
Buses are supposed to be cheap, very affordable, but running the operation is increasingly expensive. So how do you keep the service afloat, especially if it's a public service? It's supposed to be the bottom safety net that helps those most vulnerable. And we also need to consider fairness. So the public bus, just like
the post office maybe we've heard aren't really making money, but we need them. And now maybe we've found another way to bring in some new revenue and
Oh, we know that these bus companies would really appreciate that. Coming up, some call it clutter. We call it a soul softener. The childhood blankie in your drawer? Yep, that's your ah baby. I'm talking in Chinese, by the way. So what worn out thing gives you peace? Stick around, everybody. We'll discuss right after this break.
Looking for passion? How about fiery debate? Want to hear about current events in China from different perspectives? Then tune in to Roundtable, where East meets West and understanding is the goal.
You're listening to Roundtable with myself, He Yang. I'm joined by Steve Hatherly and Yushan. Ever had that one raggedy childhood blanket, stuffed animal, or even a weirdly comforting old t-shirt you just can't let go of? Well, you're not alone. And in China, there's a whole movement celebrating these beloved
threadbare treasures called Abebe. Social feeds are full of folks showing off their emotional lifelines, proof that comfort comes in all shapes and shabbiness. Why are adults so attached to these good old comforting objects? Where did the phrase Abebe come from? That's from a very interesting anecdote I found online. So it first came
This term, Abebe, first became a term that's popular as it was from an online influencer's video sharing how her son, her child, was just holding this very cute blanket around himself and saying to the camera, this is my Abebe. So it's not really a term. It's not a phrase of any sort. It's just the very cutie and loving name a child gave to his blanket. And then...
of millions of people just watch that video and they're like, oh my goodness.
That's so cute. That's where the name came from. Yeah, I love how this little boy called his blanket Abebe. And let's just talk about this. Like I have my Abebe too and what it is for me to be called Abebe. And so I'm not talking about myself. Oh, you're not? Okay. I'm just representing netizens on discussing their Abebe. So they can be childhood toys, ballpoint pens.
plushies and pillows or blankets or pillowcases that's already, you know, as old as the users themselves and often fall in seams and strips sometimes. So, yeah, these are baby. I looked at these pictures. They are often threadbare. So it's falling apart. And I think you need to wear a face mask before you sniff because all that air
might get into your nostrils. It's really not good. But, Steve, how would you say this in English? Is it a transitional option?
Transitional object. Transitional object, security object, security blanket. But it doesn't mean that it has to be a blanket. It can be anything, actually. Well, for babies, it can be a piece of a blanket. It can be a teddy bear or some kind of doll. It could be a soother. It could be anything that provides comfort to the child.
But adults, too, and they say, by the way, that it's perfectly normal for adults to have a kind of security blanket as a means of nostalgia or comfort. I had mine. I had an old hoodie. Oh, my goodness.
You know, I used to love to wear it when I would do my radio show. And one day, the elbows in this hoodie were worn out to the point that my elbows would poke through the holes in both sides. And at one point, the sound engineer said to my producer, should we all pitch in and buy Steve a new shirt? Because...
I'm starting to feel bad for him. No, that was my security blanket. I love doing the radio in that hoodie for some reason. So I think it's okay. And experts say that too. It's not just children that have their Abebe. Adults can have their Abebe as well. Yeah, because it provides a sense of comfort to you, right? It represents the touch from...
your guardian or your parents who gave it to you in the first place as a child and that similar touch or after even after a long time you don't no longer use it or wear it when you feel it like a plushie or something fluffy you still feel the comforting like power behind it that's a
representing maternal love and the place for securing yourself and feeling nice. So yeah, it makes sense. So it's been called a transitional object for reasons. You're supposed to transition to something. And now we're adults. Yeah.
Are we supposed to be over there now? Don't you have one? Don't you have some sort of? I had one. Did you? But I was made to give it up by my mom. She was like, now you're entering junior high, girl. You should probably put that thing away and not have to sleep with it. That's nice that nowadays young people are encouraged to have this community and talk about their Abebe so that they no longer feel ashamed in a way.
Or feeling deprived of their Abebe. Yeah. And you have social media to share with like-minded people. Exactly.