You can now use Alipay to pay for the bus in Shanghai
Photograph: courtesy Liu Fwei via Weibo
With online arrival cards, facial recognition airport check-in and a 50-minute train between airports in the works, travelling to and around Shanghai is getting easier and easier. And as of this week, buses have gotten in on the action by allowing people to use Alipay to pay for their journeys, according to eastday – that's trips on 1,300 bus routes just a scan away.
While the service is currently not available for foreigners (and you can't register with a passport or Hong Kong/Macau/Taiwan ID card), waiguoren can take solace in the fact that the Shanghai Metro app didn't initially allow foreigners to register to pay for metro trips when it launched its mobile ticket feature, but it did eventually. Here's hoping.
The whole service is straightforward to get set up – start by typing '上海公交' (Shanghai Public Transportation) into the search bar in the Alipay app. Register your name, phone number and Chinese ID number to receive a personalised QR code and you're ready to go. To find the QR code again, in Alipay, tap ‘Pay’ and then select the 'Transport Code' option.
So will this actually encourage you to take the bus more? Well, with WeChat pay made available on many bus routes back in June and now available on all routes, riding the bus got even more convenient. You can even complain and get a refund if the temperature during your journey isn't to your liking. We can get on board with that...