Taipei, Jan. 9 (CNA) The Kinmen County government said Thursday that it has again won top honors for the tour bus service it offers under the national Taiwan Tourist Shuttle program, which was designed to provide convenient travel to tourist sites around the country.

The 2019 prize for tour bus shuttle service went to the island county government, which won for the third consecutive year, based on performance ratings by the national Tourism Bureau, Kinmen Magistrate Yang Cheng-wu (楊鎮浯) said.

Kinmen was also rated as No. 1 among the local governments and national scenic area administrations for bus management, for the fifth straight year, Yang said at an award ceremony.

The certificates for the two awards were presented to Wang Yuan-kun (王垣坤), head of the Kinmen Bus and Ferry Management Office, and the county's Tourism Department Director Ting Chien-kang (丁健剛).

The county government provides a guided tour bus service on six routes that were added to the Taiwan Tourist Shuttle network in December 2013. The attractions on the routes include former battlefields and Minnan architecture sites.

The Kinmen tour buses are all low-floor, low-carbon, and barrier-free models that offer free Wi-Fi and electronic audio guides in Chinese, English, Japanese and Korean, according to Wang.

This year, Wang said, his office also introduced a mobile payment service for the purchase of shuttle bus tickets for Kinmen tours.

(By Huang Huei-min and Evelyn Kao)Enditem/pc