Beijing is a large city with well-developed public transportation system, which brings a great convenience to the local and the tourists on traveling. However, it is really a trouble to buy tickets and prepare charges when using the public transportation facilities. Beijing Transportation Smart Card, a little ID card, can help you to solve this problem.

The card is available for paying for the services of subway, city buses, some taxis (taxis with the sign of ‘Welcome to Use IC Card’) and the airport express train. Passengers can get 80% discounts when paying for the city-bus fare by the card. What’s more, the Transportation Smart Card can be used at some designated supermarkets, restaurants, department stores, book stores and so on.

How and Where to Apply the Card

Appliers need bring their ID card or passport to the designated sites to apply for a Beijing Transportation Smart Card. Beijing has more than 170 sites, which are located at the ticket offices of every Beijing metro stations, some bus stations and some super markets. Appliers without ID card or passport cannot apply a card but can rent one. However, the card will not be registered with the user’s name and refunds will not be returned.

When applying for a card, 20 yuan is paid as guarantee deposit, which will be returned when appliers return their undamaged cards. Remember that you’d better use the card as a ‘charge purse’ but not a bank card, and do not leave too much money in it, because if you loss this bearer card, you cannot get any compensation. However, tourists are recommended to apply the later one, which can be used without ID card or passport.

Return the Card

Users can return the card at 62 sites which are located in metro stations, bus companies, and the branches of China Citic Bank (中信银行). If the card returned is without damage, the guarantee deposit (20 yuan) will be returned together with remaining balance.

Note: If remaining balance is more than 100 yuan, 10% of the value will be charged as procedure fee. If not, no procedure fee will be charged. You can get the remaining balance 7 working days after the day you applying for returning the card. Hence, the returning of the Beijing Transportation smart card is really not convenient for tourists.

Source: chinahighlights.com