Hangzhou: A “City Brain” to Assist Tourism

Hangzhou, one of China's most famous tourism destinations, has unveiled its ambitious plan to be the nation's foremost city for the digital economy, which is also known as the “City Brain”.

Limiting the number of traffic jams

Recently, the big data platform of Xihu District tourism came into service, which owns powerful functions such as the real-time monitoring of passenger volume, hotel reservation analysis, consumption analysis, and visitor profile analysis.

The digital system can predict the possible circumstance and thus help to avoid some undesired aftermath, for example, by predicting a high flow of visitors in a tourist site, precautions such as strengthening traffic control and adjusting ticket booking are taken to circumvent any traffic congestions.

Hangzhou launched the City Brain traffic pilot project in April 2016 and, according to the city, within one year, Hangzhou’s traffic congestion dropped from the top three most congested cities in China in 2015 to 57th place.

Moreover, thanks to the urban data processors which construct a variety of driving route models based on the information collected via mobile maps and road video cameras, generating an optimal traffic plan in only a second, the efficiency of vehicles responding to 110, 119, 120 - the hotlines for crimes, fire and emergency rescue increased by half and the average time they spent on any single mission was shortened by several minutes.

The platform goes further than solving traffic jams

Despite the function of relieving traffic jams, the “City Brain” also makes great contribution to optimizing the allocation of tourist resources. Xihu District, as the key region of developing Hangzhou tourism, makes the utmost effort to shape a tourism image of “beautiful West Lake”. To further improve the comforts and safety of visitors during their trip, a variety of data monitoring facilities has been implemented in these areas: crowd concentration areas, environmental sensitive areas and hazardous areas, and to cite toilet as an example, according to the visitor profile analysis from the digital system, six family toilets have been built in tourist spots such as the Xixi Wetland and Song Dynasty City.