Beijing traffic control wows foreign journalists

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Standing in the first floor of Beijing's traffic police command center, Garry Yan of Australia was impressed with a large LED screen that consisted of 98 small display screens.

"I am surprised to see that they provide such a detailed service to the public, and that the real-time monitoring system is so advanced," Yan said on Monday.

The large monitoring screen is part of the intelligence transportation system applied by the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau in 2007, which integrated 36 real-time monitoring functions.

The system collects traffic-flow data for 24 hours with high-tech methods and releases real-time traffic information after analysis of that data, said Zou Ping, the director of the bureau's science department, on Monday.

With image-recognition technology, the system can detect road accidents on Second, Third and Fourth Ring Roads, and then report the situation to the traffic police command center, Zou said.

On Sunday, the operators of Beijing traffic hotline 122 received nearly 12,000 calls, and more than 3,000 calls reported automobile accidents. Under the system, the center can handle the traffic accidents in a short time when receiving the calls.

Those calls and information were integrated with other real-time monitoring systems, such as the locations of traffic police on patrol, which enables the nearest police to arrive at the accident scenes in a short time, Li Shaoming, deputy director of Beijing Traffic Management Bureau, told reporters from China and abroad on Monday.

The reporters were invited to the traffic police command center as well as a community school in Xicheng district by the media center of the 18th National Congress of the Communist Party of China.

Questions:

1. The large LED screen at traffic control headquarters is made up of how many small screens?

2. In what year did the Beijing Traffic Management Bureau integrate 36 monitoring functions into their intelligence transportation system?

3. How many calls did 122 receive on Sunday?

Answers:

1. 98.

2. 2007.

3. Nearly 12,000.

（中國日報網英語點津 Helen 編輯）

About the broadcaster:

CJ Henderson is a foreign expert for China Daily's online culture department. CJ is a graduate of the University of Sydney where she completed a Bachelors degree in Media and Communications, Government and International Relations, and American Studies. CJ has four years of experience working across media platforms, including work for 21st Century Newspapers in Beijing, and a variety of media in Australia and the US.