An electronic city map highlighting "barrier-free" facilities and other useful services for the disabled will be launched this year.

A trial version of the map, covering the Jing'an district, is currently available on the district's website.

"As the Special Olympics will be held in Shanghai this year, a map of the whole city will be made available," Shen Jia from the information center of the Shanghai Association for the Disabled, said.

The map will include information on the location of ramps and elevators, toilet facilities, as well as the position of service agencies and offices for the disabled.

Specialist information for the athletes and information on gymnasiums and lodgings will be added in time for the Special Olympics, which starts in August.

Shen said the digital map will also help local authorities monitor facilities that claim to be barrier-free.

"For example, if a ramp or pathway is blocked by a stall at a market, we want people to take a picture of it and send it to us," Shen said. "In the future, we will be able to monitor such places using GPS technology."

Shen told China Daily the software is available for free download now. The map will be regularly updated to ensure it contains the latest information.

"New places with facilities for the disabled open all the time, so we will be constantly adding to the map," Shen said.

Help from various institutions and government departments will be needed, to keep it up-to-date.

One downside to the map is that it is of no use to the visually challenged, Shen said.

"We are struggling to find more ways to help blind people," Shen said.

"At the moment, the Shanghai Association for the Disabled is organizing the training of seeing eye dogs."

Chen Bin, a blind masseur, complained about the difficulty he encountered at a bus stop in Shanghai.

"I waited for 40 minutes at the stop. Maybe my bus came and went, I just didn't know, because there were no announcements to help me."

Chen and his colleagues at the Yuejia Massage House hope the public can offer a helping hand to the disabled.

"The ramp is there, but if people don't care about us, it's really not much use," Chen Bin said.

(China Daily June 13, 2007)