Queue for Temporary Mobile Toilets in Scenic Areas
The queue issue for temporary mobile toilets in scenic areas can be addressed by adding more mobile toilets, promoting 'tide toilets', and optimizing management.
Adding more mobile toilets is a direct means to alleviate the queue problem. During peak tourist seasons, the influx of visitors often leads to long queues at fixed toilets due to their limited capacity, while mobile toilets can effectively share the burden. For example, the Shandong Mingqi mobile toilet adopts a prefabricated design, allowing it to be hoisted into place and put into operation immediately after leaving the factory without complex construction, enabling rapid deployment. Its fecal treatment system offers multiple options such as microbial degradation and foam sealing, featuring anti-seepage and anti-leakage functions, automatic deodorization, and is equipped with user-friendly facilities like sensor-activated squat toilets and constant temperature devices to enhance the user experience. Its appearance can be designed as a landscape feature, blending harmoniously with the mountain and water environment to avoid a jarring appearance. More importantly, the number of toilet stalls in mobile toilets can be flexibly adjusted according to the actual needs of the scenic area: additional stalls can be added during peak seasons to cope with high visitor numbers, and they can be relocated to other areas or reduced in number during off-peak seasons to avoid resource wastage. Maintenance is also relatively simple, making them suitable for various scenarios such as forest parks, popular camping sites, and mountain viewing platforms.
Promoting 'tide toilets' can dynamically optimize the allocation of toilet stalls. 'Tide toilets' set up a number of 'gender-neutral toilet stalls' and use movable signs or lockable sliding doors to dynamically adjust access rights based on real-time visitor flow. For example, after introducing 'tide toilets', the Qinghai Heidushan scenic area saw the waiting time for women to use the toilet during peak hours reduced from over 30 minutes to less than 10 minutes, significantly improving toilet efficiency. This model is simple, cost-effective, and highly effective, especially suitable for scenic areas with fluctuating visitor numbers.
Attention should be paid to the management details of 'tide toilets' to avoid controversies. Previously, a 'tide toilet' at the Huizhou West Lake scenic area in Guangdong Province featured manually adjustable male/female signs at the entrance and was unattended, leading to visitor concerns about confusion between male and female toilet areas and privacy breaches. Currently, these signs have been completely removed and will be replaced with fixed slot-type signs to enhance their stability and clarity. This case reminds scenic areas that when promoting 'tide toilets', it is necessary to improve the signage system and management measures to ensure visitor privacy and toilet order.
