The wrist-worn smart cards will be accepted for travel, shopping, and more
For Beijing commuters, the days of fumbling for their transit passes may be behind them. Starting soon, the city’s municipal authorities plan to offer smart cards with wireless capabilities, and all in the form of a small wrist strap.
According to Want China Times, the Beijing Municipal Administration (BMA) is about to roll out a wearable version of its Traffic Card (or Yikatong, for “one card pass”). The touchless smart cards, already accepted on all municipal transit, by various vendors, and in some taxi cabs in the city, are part of a plan to bring the technology to 400 Chinese cities.
Working with local tech developers, the Beijing Municipal Transportation Card Company will reportedly release five million new cards in the form of wrist straps, and which will perhaps be able to connect wirelessly with mobile devices. With the new developments, users will also be able to recharge their cards through a mobile app and use them at an expanded list of supermarkets, convenience stores, and restaurants. Reports also suggest that the 168 yuan (US$26.90) new model will contain some health-tracking features and “provide suggestions based on the statistics it obtains.”
The Yikatong is similar to Singapore’s CEPAS, Singapore’s Octopus Card, and London’s Oyster Card, all of which are accepted transit-wide and among additional vendors. China.org.cn reported that Beijing has previously issued 70 million transportation cards, 14 million social security cards, and 100 million patient IDs for use in hospitals, and city officials hope to unify these products. Zhang Boxu, director of the Beijing Municipal Commission of Economy and Information Technology, said:
We set up the standard of the multi-purpose card ‘Beijing Tong’, and had built a unified platform for the whole city by last year. In the future, citizens will only need to remember their card’s 12-digit number to handle all their business.
While long lines for purchasing and refilling cards deterred Beijing transit users after the smart card’s 2006 launch, the BMA since sweetened the pot by offering up to 60 percent fare discounts for card users, and had issued almost 42 million by 2012.
How the smart cards will be made wearable is currently unknown, but CityLab points out that Beijing municipal authorities could do worse than using slap bracelet technology. Various wrist-worn wearables already utilize similar tech, and more may be unveiled soon; in 2013, Quartz reported that Apple had filed a patent at that time (suspected to relate to the upcoming Apple Watch) for a “slap bracelet”-style product with a “flexible substrate having a flat state and a curled state” and a “bi-stable spring with flexible display.”
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