Beijing: China on Friday said it will press 10 electricity-powered vintage buses into service to open a second tourist bus route here as part of a plan to attract more visitors to the iconic Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City.
The buses, that will go into service from next Wednesday, can carry 28 passengers accompanied by Chinese/English interpreter.
The 10-kilometre circular route has 15 stops and mostly around Tiananmen Square, said Beijing Public Transport Group.
The buses will run between 8 am and 5 pm from April to October and from 8:30 am for the rest of the year, state-run Xinhua news agency reported.
Each trip will cost 15 yuan (USD?2.40)?for ordinary people and 10 yuan (USD 1.60) for those with public transport cards.
This is the second such tourist route in Beijing.
The first route opened in September last year and has carried 250,000 tourists.
These buses are modelled after trams that appeared in Beijing in 1924.
They are painted red or green, with a wooden carriage floor and red leather upholstry.
Many old citizens in China's capital are quite fond of the trams, known to them as "dangdang" buses, after the sound of the bells drivers used instead of horns.
The trams stopped service in 1966.
