Beijing Subway Bids Farewell to Paper Tickets

Beijing Subway bid farewell to paper tickets on Monday as a new Automatic Fare Collection, or the AFC system, was put into use in all subway stations.

The AFC system includes facilities that sell and check magnetic strip（磁条, 磁片） tickets, as well as top up transport cards.

Subway officials says the system makes it easier to collect information on how many people have entered and exited the subways at different times of the day. The data will help the company to better organize the frequency of trains and improve efficiency.

Jia Peng, publicity official with the Beijing Subway Company, said they are distributing the AFC machines according to the passenger flow in each station.

''There are more than 30 machines in busy stations while smaller stations have 5 or 6. In addition to the automatic system, we also have personnel serving at ticket outlets. Through this combination, the ticket-selling system can meet the demand of subway passengers in Beijing.''

The subway fare has not risen due to the installment of the new system. The fare remains at 2 yuan, about 30 US cents.

Beijing now has five subway lines, transporting millions of passengers a day. It plans to add three subway lines this year.