I had been outstation to China nearly about 2 weeks in Nov for office related work. By all means the only way I travelled around China was by using public transportations.
I’ll explain one by one, hands on experienced using their public transportations. To be more specific this experience is only referred to Shanghai city.
TAXI
Taxi is the most convenient way to travel especially for short distance. The taxi’s differs in quite number of colors which I don’t know what it's actually means (maybe different company it represents). The price of the taxi normally starts at RMB 11.00 (RM5.50) once u hops in. Then the price will increase based on km or minutes (similar to other part of the world). All taxi’s that I used followed the meter system. There is no fear or doubt about being cheated by taxi drivers due to this. I can see clearly how the meter runs & most of the prices were all the same from one taxi to another.
However, I experienced having communication problem with taxi drivers. They intend to misinterpreted what you say because they actually don’t know where u want to go & whatever you say. In most cases, I will ask the hotel reception to write in Chinese where I intend to go before boarding any taxis. This is actually a major issue to foreigners around the city when using this mode of public transportation.
Metro Subway System
The cheapest & fastest way to travel there is by using Metro train. Which in Malaysia we called it as "LRT" which cost you abot RMB 3.50. (RM1.60). For as low as RMB 4-5 I can travel from edge of the city line to another with quite numbers of stops. The subway have several link
systems such as Yellow Subway, Green, Red & Blue. This subways in interconnected by several clash stations around the city. Unfortunately they don’t have a main station which have all the systems link together like KL Central. Anyway, this sub systems is nothing compared to Malaysian systems. In Malaysia our LRT systems mostly involve sub railway & highways. I must say, compared to view & tourism perspective ours is much better.
I easily adapted to the systems due to the signs & instructions were written clearly in bi-language (English & Chinese). The funniest experience I face was travelling during peak hours (around 4.00pm). A huge turnout of anxious people were eventually makes the train like sardines can (more or less like this). People been pushed in up to the limit. Some of the cases I can see clearly part of the people leaning next to the door having their cloth out side their door (someone stuck). This will happen to us if we didn’t to something about our transportation system in 5-10 year time.
MAGLEV
This was among the best public transportation I ever use. The price using this transportation was RMB 80 (RM40.00) for one way & RMB 150 (RM 75) for both ways. MAGLEV is a fast
train using magnetic system. I don’t know how to explain this but this system uses magnetic field to float & move all the way from Shanghai city to the airport (on a magnetic rail track of course). Travelling by taxi’s from the city to airport normally takes around 1 to 1 ½ hours. But using the MAGLEV one just had to spend only 8 minutes in the train. Surprise isn’t it? Only 8 minutes. The maximum travel speed while I’m using it was 356km/hour which nearly the same as travel speed of an aeroplane.
I’m actually thrilled when I used the transportation. Having the fact it moves so fast just make me realise how the world have evolved so fast from gas train to this kind of train. WOW.
I’ll explain one by one, hands on experienced using their public transportations. To be more specific this experience is only referred to Shanghai city.
TAXI
Taxi is the most convenient way to travel especially for short distance. The taxi’s differs in quite number of colors which I don’t know what it's actually means (maybe different company it represents). The price of the taxi normally starts at RMB 11.00 (RM5.50) once u hops in. Then the price will increase based on km or minutes (similar to other part of the world). All taxi’s that I used followed the meter system. There is no fear or doubt about being cheated by taxi drivers due to this. I can see clearly how the meter runs & most of the prices were all the same from one taxi to another.However, I experienced having communication problem with taxi drivers. They intend to misinterpreted what you say because they actually don’t know where u want to go & whatever you say. In most cases, I will ask the hotel reception to write in Chinese where I intend to go before boarding any taxis. This is actually a major issue to foreigners around the city when using this mode of public transportation.
Metro Subway System
The cheapest & fastest way to travel there is by using Metro train. Which in Malaysia we called it as "LRT" which cost you abot RMB 3.50. (RM1.60). For as low as RMB 4-5 I can travel from edge of the city line to another with quite numbers of stops. The subway have several link
systems such as Yellow Subway, Green, Red & Blue. This subways in interconnected by several clash stations around the city. Unfortunately they don’t have a main station which have all the systems link together like KL Central. Anyway, this sub systems is nothing compared to Malaysian systems. In Malaysia our LRT systems mostly involve sub railway & highways. I must say, compared to view & tourism perspective ours is much better.I easily adapted to the systems due to the signs & instructions were written clearly in bi-language (English & Chinese). The funniest experience I face was travelling during peak hours (around 4.00pm). A huge turnout of anxious people were eventually makes the train like sardines can (more or less like this). People been pushed in up to the limit. Some of the cases I can see clearly part of the people leaning next to the door having their cloth out side their door (someone stuck). This will happen to us if we didn’t to something about our transportation system in 5-10 year time.
MAGLEV
This was among the best public transportation I ever use. The price using this transportation was RMB 80 (RM40.00) for one way & RMB 150 (RM 75) for both ways. MAGLEV is a fast
train using magnetic system. I don’t know how to explain this but this system uses magnetic field to float & move all the way from Shanghai city to the airport (on a magnetic rail track of course). Travelling by taxi’s from the city to airport normally takes around 1 to 1 ½ hours. But using the MAGLEV one just had to spend only 8 minutes in the train. Surprise isn’t it? Only 8 minutes. The maximum travel speed while I’m using it was 356km/hour which nearly the same as travel speed of an aeroplane.I’m actually thrilled when I used the transportation. Having the fact it moves so fast just make me realise how the world have evolved so fast from gas train to this kind of train. WOW.
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There's a lot of idea's Malaysia can improve the public transportation system. Even in country like China have a quite impressive system which i dont ever imagine. Its time for us to take example of others countries system which we can adopt in Malaysia. Hill slope development, transportation system & medical systems are among things which we can try to follow or adopt.
Why not? Improve shall we?
Note: 100 RMB (Yuan) = RM 56.00
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