Recently, the Beijing governors or city planners or whoever, have decided to implement the use of "smart cards" for the payment of bus fare, subway fare and eventually they could also be used to pay the taxi fares...anything that needs money essentially, the uses are limitless.
The previous system was, get on the bus and go sit down and then tell someone where you intend to travel to and they will give you a ticket and ticket price based on the distance to this location. Of course, for me, this system is often problematic cause I do not know the name of my destination, so I am speaking to a Chinese peasant about where I want to get off the bus so I can know if I need to give 10 or 20 cents. For the Chinese government, this is a problem because the Chinese peasantry would often quote a destination within the minimum fare region and then ride for the duration of the trip and no bus operator can do much about that. Enter the new system....
The Chinese do not like this new system at all, for a number of reasons. First, they have to get a special card and put money onto it. They had a program on the news, attempting to prove to the Chinese that the card will not break and make them loose their money.
Second, this system requires the people to enter in one door and leave through another. They must wait in line to enter and leave the bus. Also, the buses must line up and stop at the correct place. To quote Jiao Jiao on the issue, "There are too many Chinese people, they cannot wait to get on and get off, it takes too long." And in her defense, there are a lot of people going home at 5:00 inside the city, but buses driving orderly and people entering and leaving buses orderly will not slow the process. This is what the Beijing residents WILL soon learn, order is faster than chaos, which was the previous system.
As it is, the government is currently "Skinner boxing" the Beijing people, putting up physical barriers intended to promote a flow of passengers through a certain area and also going as far as putting bus station monitors or flaggers at bus stations to ensure compliance. If anything, the presence of the flagger has made the people wait for the bus to stop before the people rush at the door.
The barriers are ready to go up. I have often said that traffic in China is like the flow of water, it will go anywhere that a physical barrier is not created. It seems the government agrees.
Some people did not immediately understand the concept of the barrier. While the mountain can tell water where it will go, it certainly cannot tell it when. haha
If they could do something like this with the subway system I would be happy.
Posted by: jeff | May 27, 2006 at 11:59 PM
It's so silly thinking the card will break... but that type of thinking isn't atypical for a society that used to cash only.
It's nice to see another city adopting the smart card system. The Octopus Card (八达通) in Hong Kong pioneered this technology and has been a success since it's implementation in 1997. Most forms of public transportation, trains, metro, bus, light bus, ferry, trams, have readers installed. You simply just walk through the gates or get on the bus and you don't even have to remove the card from your wallet or purse... you pass your wallet/purse over the reader and you're paid in. It's so much more efficient.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Octopus_card
I even have a card myself, so when I get to HK, I can start using it the minute I'm off the airplane. My sis didn't have a card the last time we were in town... and we got fed up after buying single fare tickets after after 2 days. It's so convenient... the bad part is that you can spend oodles of money on transport and not know it! Not to mention you can also use the card at McCrapolds, 7-11, other retailers, and parking meters.
Posted by: Andy (美国土子) | May 29, 2006 at 03:12 AM
I think it will be at least one more year before you can go all the way to the 7-11 with the card here. More than likely, the government will make the people charge the card with their own money, then some people will loose them, and it will be a real real mess. Then they will figure it out. Aparently, Korea has it's system working very well.
Posted by: Jacob | May 29, 2006 at 05:41 AM
What up with Shawn thesedays? I miss reading his blog. Is he ok?
Posted by: sun jee | May 29, 2006 at 10:20 PM
Getting really curious about ling lings post i visited that kimchi pot site even though it just makes fun of shawn, but there was a post from you looking for contact info for Julie and John.....can you fill us in, even people who hated Shawn are very concerned about him.
Posted by: Stephen | May 30, 2006 at 05:44 AM
Is it true? If so it is a sad day, he will be missed. I hope people remember Shawn for his interesting points of view and his passion for new adventures. Also regarding some information you were looking for... I am sure you already have it, but if you don't here is her site http://ja-youngs.blogspot.com/
Posted by: Jin Kang | May 30, 2006 at 02:25 PM