3,600 Additional Subway Staff to Help Commuters with New Pricing (and Make Sure You Don't Cheat)

For those of you already contemplating how to cheat the system once the Beijing subway prices are raised December 28, be forewarned that Big Brother will be watching your every move: an additional 3,600 personnel will be on hand to keep an eye on potential cheats (and of course to give you a hand if you've somehow missed the news about the price hike).

A sad little article appeared in Chinese media this morning detailing how the subway system is going to deal with an expected increase in people trying to scam the system: via stocking up on turnstyle-watchers and non-specific threats of fines for those caught trying to pay full fare.

The article refers to some ideas commuters have been swapping online about how to beat the fare increases, followed by how the authorities intend to crack down upon such behavior. Here's the Big Four:

Jump the turnstile
The method: The old-fashioned method known the world over: vault over the turnstyles. Beijing's unusual low-hung plastic gates make it exceptionally easy to do so, given you're relatively fit and not donning a flowing dress or Buddhist robes. Do it at rush hour and how's anyone going to fight the sea of people to catch you?
How they're going to stop you: 3,600 additional staff in some sort of vaguely threatening-looking uniform will hopefully keep the masses in line. If you've got nerves of steel, there's the threat of a fat fine if you accidentally Wu-Tang the gates into a state of disrepair during an ill-timed leap. Not to mention the fine you'll get for avoiding the fare in the first place: current regulations set this at 10 times the normal fare, or RMB 20 – though no word yet on what the fine will be under the new system. Presuming the highest possible fare is RMB 9, you could be fined up to RMB 90 for turnstyle-jumping.

Squeeze past with a buddy
The method: Get close enough to the person in front of you and two can squeeze by with one swipe (in fact, parents are allowed to do this when traveling with children under 1.2 meters). Once again the oddly timed plastic gates in Beijing's subway make squeezing by a breeze for any two people with a modicum of "spooning."
How they're going to stop you: Via shame. Shame on you for doing this, are you no different than a common criminal? Seriously, there's not a good way to stop this now, and short of the wholesale replacement of the gates, shame will continue to be the only method of control for stopping this.

The old "I lost my card" trick
The method: "Lose" your card and say you got on the train just one stop away and owe just the minimum fare. Argue until the other side relents and lets you go for the price of the lowest fare. Do this under the new pricing scheme, though, and you're likely to be asked to pay the new maximum fare (which we think is around RMB 9).
How they're going to stop you: Take away the advantage. Though not formally announced, lost card fines are likely to be set at the maximum fare (RMB 9), so there will be no financial incentive to pull this trick.

Ticket swapping
The method: The most elaborate of the plans, which Beijing techno-geeks are apparently already hard at work creating an app for. Two long-distance commuters traveling in opposite directions swap cards mid-journey so that they can exit near where their swapping partner entered and each pay the lowest fare possible.
How they're going to stop you: More threats of horrible consequences and fines if you are caught in the act of doing this. How exactly they will detect such swapping schemes is still left to your imagination (or to science fiction).

In other subway news, the system is hard at work on an upgrade of the ticketing system software and hardware to deal with the new ticketing as well as the new lines due to go online before the end of December. By the time they are through, there will be 45,000 fully upgraded ticket machines throughout the system, along with tens of thousands of upgraded signs and station markers.

Image: China Daily