Smart Bus project takes off in Baotou

An innovative Smart Bus project launched by Baotou, located in northern China’s Inner Mongolia autonomous region, has really taken off in the city of Baotou since its launch in November last year, according to a Baotou Evening News report.

According to statistics provided by Baotou Bus Transportation Group, the number of passengers opting to use mobile payments showed a significant growth over the past three months.

The Baotou City Smart Bus project relies on UnionPay’s mobile payment products and adds UnionPay’s Quick Pass payment method to enable passengers to pay with their cellphones.

Baotou upgraded the payment systems on more than 1,400 of its buses to enable them to accept mobile payments by the end of May last year.

By early June, UnionPay’s Quick Pass for cards and mobile payments became fully supported. In July, the scan and pay functions on the Quick Pass payments app and the Luchengtong app was launched.

Baotou residents are able to the pay the bus fare using debit cards with Quick Pass, as long as they hold bank cards with the China UnionPay logo issued by any domestic or foreign bank.

According to a resident surnamed Wang, the mobile payments solution spared him the trouble of traveling to the designated places for an IC bus card top-up. When mobile payments were first launched in the city, it cost only a few cents to take a bus ride. Now, although the price has returned to the normal fare, it is still very convenient compared with the old payments method.

The move not only brings greater convenience to passengers, but also to bus drivers and bus tellers by reducing the occurrence of damaged banknotes and coins during their daily counting process.

A resident tries out mobile payments on a bus in Baotou, in Inner Mongolia autonomous region. [Photo/Baotou Evening News]