Transport authorities drive up online service efficiency

Zhang Chaoyan / SHINE

About 90 percent of administrative services offered by Shanghai transportation commission were handled on the Internet in the first eight months of this year, the commission said on Friday.

Of the 710,000 service cases handled, over 640,000, including the declaration of work involving hazardous goods, the transportation of over-limit vehicles and the filing of construction contracts, were entirely processed online.

This saved applicants the trouble of traveling to the commission's service windows.

During an event held by the commission on Friday, business representatives were invited to the administrative service center to try its new online services.

A manager surnamed Shi, who is from the car rental firm Arval Jiutong Co, renewed the licenses of cars owned by his company on a machine at the service center under instruction from a staff member. The entire process took under 10 minutes.

"The application on the Internet requires fewer paper materials and is much more efficient than window services," he said. "I only needed to show the business certificate of my company and enter the plate numbers of our vehicles."

Hao Weiwei, deputy director of the commission's administrative center, said the expansion of online service offerings was enabled by data sharing between different government departments.

"In this case, for example, the system can directly obtain information about the company and upload submitted details about vehicles. This reduces the number of categories of data required from the applicant of the service," she said.

However, traditional window services still remain.

"In some cases people still seek the windows because the administrative procedures for certain services are a bit complicated," she said.

The commission said it will incorporate more intelligent technology in its services in the future to provide more convenience for people.