Soon You’ll be Able to Swipe Your Mobile at Subway Turnstiles

Dan Edwards | Oct 19, 2010 1:00 pm | 3 comments | 1771 reads

News reports in the Chinese-language media state that Beijingers may soon have an alternative to the city’s transportation cards. According to this report, subscribers to China Unicom will soon be able to swipe their mobile phones when using subway or bus services in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Chongqing.

According to the report, the mobile phone swipe function will be introduced this November, although no specific date is given.

In order to use the service, users will need to obtain a new SIM card or a new phone – it’s unclear at this stage whether users can insert their old SIMs into an appropriate Unicom phone and keep their old number.

The report does not indicate whether users will be able to top up the transport fare credit on their phones at subway stations.

Transportation credit and phone credit will be stored separately on the phones, and users will be able to store a maximum of RMB 1,000 of transportation credit. Fares will be at the same levels as those charged to transportation cards.

Comments

New comments are displayed first.

Comments

HuanChu's picture HuanChu Submitted by Guest on Thu, 10/21/2010 - 01:00

Man, gotta say this kind of sucks.

Now Unicom have both this, and the IPhone? Why no love for CM users?

Come on China Mobile! Get with the program and give some of your loyal customers a break!

A very smart man wrote:
Remember, the courage to be wrong is paramount in importance to the ability to be right.

Mr.Mark's picture Mr.Mark Submitted by Guest on Wed, 10/20/2010 - 10:43

I think this would be the same concept they're using in Seoul, South Korea. using ur SIM card for these kind of public transport services would seriously decrease the amount of cards in ur pocket. Then just throw ur phone in a machine to top up the public transport fee and off you go again.
I've already been waiting for a long time for China to introduce this kind of system. Another reason more to change to Liantong.

Validate your mobile phone number to post comments.