Metro 'ready to accept payment by phone' soon
Turnstiles at Changshou Road on Line 7 have already been converted to accept QR code scanning.
People will “soon” be able to enter and exit Metro stations via QR code payments from their phones, according to the Shanghai Rail Traffic Fan Club site on Weibo.
“It will be a new feature of App Metro Daduhui (Chinese for metropolitan), possibly working with Alipay,” said one of the editors of the site, who gave his name as Zhao, “but more details are still being discussed.”
Shanghai Daily logged onto the application, which gives details of Metro operations but not as yet further details on the QR scanning. Both the Metro operator and Alipay have declined to comment.
An investigation by Shanghai Daily has shown that some of the turnstiles at Changshou Road on Line 7 have already been converted to accept QR code scanning. And Zhao said the Shanghai maglev train stations at Pudong airport and Longyang Road have also done the same.
“You cannot use the code just yet, I do not know when will this be put into service,” said a Metro official at Changshou Road station. The official asked not to be identified.
This is not the first time that Shanghai Metro has brought NFC (near field communication) technology into play.
In February 2014, the Metro worked with SPD bank to enable mobile payments for passengers with China Mobile phone contracts. However, many passengers didn't take up the option as they said the process was too complicated.
