The city will replace more than 2,000 traffic signs along local expressways this year with bilingual signs that indicate where the highway heads, instead of simple numbers, government officials announced yesterday.

For example, signs along the A11 Expressway will now refer to the artery as the Shanghai-Nanjing Expressway, so drivers from outside the city will easily understand where it starts and ends.

Workers began replacing the first signs yesterday, and the entire project is expected to be completed by May 1, officials said.

"We expect to make our expressway signs easy to understand, particularly for non-natives and foreigners," Wang Rong, an official with the Shanghai Engineering Administrative Bureau, said yesterday.

"The existing signs on expressways are ambiguous for both Chinese and foreign people because they don't have a proper explanation," said Wang Guofu, a local taxi driver.

He said not all drivers, particularly those from outlying provinces, understand what the numbers stand for.

The city will also set up more signs along the highways to indicate what exits are ahead. Currently, such signs are set up every kilometer along the city's expressways. In the future, there will be a sign 2.5 kilometers before any exit, and another sign every 500 meters until the exit.

The city currently has more than 10 expressways stretching 560 kilometers.

Shanghai plans to build 320 kilometers of new expressways over the next five years including one linking the Pudong International Airport with Zhejiang Province.

By 2010, the city will have six expressways heading to Jiangsu Province and four expressways to Zhejiang Province.

Currently, there are three expressways to Jiangsu and one to Zhejiang.

(Shanghai Daily January 26, 2006)