Taking a Bus in Hangzhou? Mobile Payments Only, Please.

Anyone planning a trip to Hangzhou, China better be ready for a big change.

By the end of June, all 5,000 buses in downtown Hangzhou will have mobile payments terminals, and the remaining 3,000 buses serving outlying areas will follow suit before the ball drops on 2017.

With around 3.9 million passenger trips on such buses made every day, and cash payments representing about $247,000 in business—roughly half the bus line’s receipts—bringing mobile payments to the bus line is likely to smooth out some operations and make it that much faster to get on and off the bus.

As noted by Hangzhou Public Transportation Group deputy general manager Weng Jun, most Hangzhou residents are already using mobile payments for most other purposes—eating, shopping, taxi rides—so why not bring it to the bus?

A trial run of the mobile payments-only program started back last August, revealing that numbers were small at first, but built quickly. Further expansion led to positive results, and eventually the bus line made the call to just switch over completely.

The terminals in question were a co-development between the bus line and Alipay, not surprisingly, which should give the company even more of a stranglehold on the local market.

There’s good news about this, though; riders will be able to use a great variety of payment platforms to make those payments, including Apple Pay, Android Pay, Huawei Pay, MiPay, and Samsung Pay. Plus, city transport cards will also be available for the needs of those unfamiliar with the area, or for older riders not well-versed in mobile payment systems.

This is a good idea; considering that almost half the bus system is getting paid in cash, declaring an end to cash outright probably would not have gone well. By making mobile payments an option, though, that maintains needed versatility and gives those who want the mobile access the ability to use it while not completely snubbing everybody who’d rather pay cash.

Versatility is a valuable thing, and those who value it in turn are likely to be rewarded with ongoing use and revenue. The Hangzhou bus line saw what it believed to be a deficit, and responded accordingly, delivering value to the user by adding mobile payments options.