Every so often you run into something so completely wonderful, it forces you to ask yourself, “how the hell did I never hear of this before?” ExploreMetro is one such example.
It seemingly began in early 2007 as ExploreShanghai, an interactive Shanghai subway/metro map, developed by what appears to be a lone British web developer by the name of Matt Mayers. Recently in late 2008, however, ExploreShanhai was joined by ExploreBeijing and ExploreGuangzhou, completing ExploreMetro’s offerings to include all three of China’s “first-tier” cities.
Mayer’s maps provide a number of useful and convenient features:
- Overall map of the subway systems in China’s major metropolises, including all lines in operation, stops and transfer stations, in both English and Chinese.
- Times for the first and last trains departing from each station, so you’ll never use the subway too early or too late.
- A route-planner allowing the user to drag from their departing station to their destination station, providing approximate travel time and fare cost. Be wowed by the cute animation sequence.
- A “pedia” that provides additional detailed information for each station in the system, including: approximate travel times to other stations along the line, station diagrams sourced from Chinese-only 51metro.com (Shanghai only), integrated Google maps, and photos of the station’s surroundings.
- Sexy female Chinese voice reading aloud each station’s name (at present, only Shanghai).
Mayer also provides at least one extremely amusing (but otherwise useless) feature, silly loading status messages:
- calculating ticket prices
- checking tickets
- cleaning up spit (zing!)
- digging new tunnels
- filling up Huangpu river (SH only)
- fluffing clouds
- installing interchanges
- opening metro stations
- polishing Olympic medals (BJ only)
- polishing station attendants’ badges
- refilling metro cards
- reticulating splines
- renaming stations
- starting down escalators
- starting up escalators
- sweeping platforms
- training drivers
Those are the ones I’ve managed to jot down upon countless page reloads, and I absolutely love the geeky SimCity references. Other bonus material include a cute anagrammed version of the Shanghai metro map.
While local Chinese will likely still prefer using their own home-grown Chinese-language websites, ExploreMetro should be a nice reference for China’s many expats and foreign visitors who opt not to waste time or money hopping into taxis to get wherever they want to go when the subway is equally accessible and often times much faster.
You can read more about the Explore metro maps at their blog, and if anyone knows of any other easter-egg or special inside jokes, please share them in the comments below.
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