How to make public transport secure

The ongoing annual sessions of the National People's Congress and Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference should work out measures to strengthen public transport security.

This is important because just days before the two sessions opened, a fire in a bus in Guiyang, Guizhou province, killed six passengers and injured 35. Local police say a suspect, who has been arrested, used gasoline to set fire to the bus to vent his fury over a family dispute. Similar incidents were reported from Xiamen, Fujian province, and Chengdu, Sichuan province, earlier. And last week two teenagers sprayed smelly gas in a Guangzhou subway "just for fun", triggering a small stampede.

Public transport security needs to be especially strengthened in cities with high population density such as Beijing and Shanghai, because buses and metro trains are crowded during office hours, and even a minor fire, let alone a major emergency, could put commuters in danger.