It seems that there is nothing a smartphone can’t accomplish these days. After Alipay launched the function to help you locate pet-friendly restaurants, they are taking their service one step further by helping you find the nearest public toilets.
On November 19, which just so happened to be ‘World Toilet Day,’ the cloud platform called City Toilets was launched via WeChat. This new system helps you locate public toilets within a 2 kilometer radius of your location, and also allows you to upload details of any toilets you find, that are yet to be listed. A couple of days ago, the App version came out, too.
In addition to finding you a toilet location, the navigation system will also guide you there, and you can also access information such as environment and sanitation by checking others’ reviews. (Since the system has only been online for a few days, most toilets don’t have reviews yet.)
It is said that approximately 330,000 toilets throughout 29 municipal cities and provinces have been registered in the database, including those in metro stations, shopping malls, fast food restaurants and universities.
“Our goal is to solve the universal problem,” says Kuang Shihuan, deputy director of Beijing Wanfang Cloud Technology Co. which developed the system. “We can help people utilize the social resources more efficiently. Pedestrians and tourists get to know where to go as well as how to get there.”
It seems that the app is a result of the China National Tourism Administrations’ 3 year “public toilet revolution”, which has made numerous achievements since it began in 2015.
Since the revolution started, the government has invested RMB1.8 billion (USD272 million dollars) in public construction. By the end of October 2017, nearly 68,000 public toilets at tourist attractions had been revamped.
You can now download both versions by scanning the QR codes below. Although there is no English version yet, one will be available soon.
So, thanks to the new App, we will know exactly where to go next time nature calls.
