Li Xing

Provide more people with better transport

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2005-12-15 06:25

With eight arms, an octopus reaches out for and sucks up its prey at will.

Although I have only seen a few at ocean parks, I came to love its extended meaning after I travelled in Hong Kong early this year with my husband and daughter.

The Hong Kong Octopus cards we purchased at the MTR (subway) customer service centre at Tsim Sha Tsui enabled us to get on and off any of the region's public transport vehicles at will, from the subway, bus, ferry and tram to train.

Moreover, we easily bought Danish pastries and cups of coffee at a Starbucks and a few bars of chocolate and magazines at a 7-Eleven store with the cards.

The convenience the Octopus card offers in a way demonstrates the thoughtfulness and efficiency with which the Hong Kong government manages its public transportation.

Meanwhile, the ongoing expansion of the local smart card alliance indicates the willingness of the public transport providers and businesses to join hands to make the region's well-known service environment even better.

At that time, we wondered why such a smart public transit card was not available in Beijing.

Only recently, as a public hearing in relation to IC cards is scheduled for next week, have I realized I have been ignorant of a similar scheme in Beijing, in the form of the IC cards.

I do have excuses for my ignorance, even though the IC card was introduced two years ago. It links only some buses, the subway and some taxis in Beijing.

One Saturday afternoon when I had to join more than 100 people in long queues at the Xidan subway ticketing office, I didn't spot an announcement or a service counter, or a kiosk, encouraging people to buy an IC card.

Some 16 million people make Beijing their permanent or temporary home. By October this year, some 3 million tourists from overseas visited Beijing. However, local media reported that only some 210,000 IC cards had been sold by the end of September this year, with 41,000 daily transactions on average.

By comparison, permanent residents in Hong Kong number around 6.5 million, and some 21 million people from outside visited Hong Kong last year alone. Since its inception in 1997, some 9 million Octopus cards and 150,000 smart watches are said to have been issued, an average of 1,125,000 cards a year.

According to the local Smart Card Alliance, over 7 million transactions are recorded on a daily basis, for a daily transaction value of over HK$50 million (US$6.5 million), of which 75 per cent are related to public transportation.

The volume alone shows the vigour of local public transportation in Hong Kong.

However, the spread of IC cards, which allow all public transport providers to join, has been hampered in part by Beijing's decades-old system of monthly bus passes. The scheduled public hearing will discuss whether the city should replace the monthly passes with the IC cards.

I myself once was proud of having such a monthly pass that got me around Beijing by buses or subway by paying 10 yuan (US$1.20) a month. But that was more than 20 years ago, when few looked at things in terms of gains and losses.

But I am now all for replacing the old scheme with the more convenient IC cards.

The expansion of a unified automatic fare collection system in Beijing is expected to make it easier for commuters as well as tourists to travel in Beijing.

Beijing must do it, because it is estimated that about 1 million people from across the country and overseas will converge here during the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games.

The old scheme has many problems. Today about 1.3 million, or less than 10 per cent of the residents in Beijing, benefit from the old scheme.

Only 8,000 buses, or about 45 per cent of the surface transportation, accept monthly passes, in order to limit the losses the services sustain from the old scheme.

Meanwhile, only 200,000 monthly passes are issued for the subway, while the number of passengers is more than 1.1 million a day.

An old scheme enjoyed by only a small percentage of people surely should be replaced.

While it may not be difficult to swap the old passes for the new IC cards, it will surely test the determination and governance of the municipal government to make it link all public transportation service providers and even retail businesses for the benefit of the general public.

Above all, the IC scheme constitutes a part of Beijing's promise to make the Olympics shine with convenience and good services. How will it fulfil it? The world is watching.

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(China Daily 12/15/2005 page4)