Expressway service areas in Jiangsu boost support to freight transportation

2022-04-13 13:55:00

Service areas of expressways in Jiangsu Province have provided thoughtful assistances to drivers amid efforts to ensure smooth transportation of daily supplies.

While most dine-in services have been suspended to curb the spread of the virus, drivers can still find freshly cooked takeaway meals at a cost of 20 yuan in nearly 40 service areas. Drivers can scan the QR code in the parking area to pay and get the food through a contactless delivery. Meanwhile, the provision of insulated food storage containers and disinfectant cleaners at the venues also help safeguard the health of freight drivers.

Service areas have also set up 182 temporary grocery stores for drivers to buy basic necessities such as biscuits, bread, instant noodles and bottled water at any time and without price hike. Drivers can also get boiled water, information inquiry and other services all free of charge. Data showed such stores have provided services to nearly 10 million people since March.

In line with COVID-19 response measures, all arriving people from medium and high-risk areas need to hold a certificate for a negative nucleic acid test result taken 24 hours before entering the service area, or a result taken 48 hours for people from other areas. To help people answer a call of nature, 500 mobile toilets have been put at car parks.

As COVID-19 has disrupted the transportation and distribution of containers for Shanghai Port, Jiangsu Communications Holding, which is mainly engaged in construction, operating, management of highways, opened six service areas specially for container trucks on April 6, which has so far handled 934 trucks. The province will soon add six more service areas to improve the closed-loop management.

Jiangsu has sent many medical teams to assist Shanghai’s fight against the COVID-19 outbreak in April. These teams returned to the province after completing the mission on the same day. Three service areas are designated as supply hubs for the mission, which received nearly 3,000 medics in more than 70 passenger vehicles per day on average since April 4.