Showcases - Beijing

Beijing looks to the future with MIFARE

Beijing has taken an important step to enhance its public transport systems' efficiency and attractiveness, by investing in contactless smart card technology for bus, metro and taxi services. At a time when people and market conditions are prompting investment in public transport, the capital city of the world's most populous nation has adopted MIFARE for its Beijing One Card project.

The first phase of the project covers modernization of the city's public transport infrastructure, with the installation of 100,000 validators, 1 million cards issued so far, and an estimated 5 million cards to be issued over the next two to three years. The project will provide fast, secure and easy payment conditions and help to prevent fraud by reducing the amount of cash in the system. The ultimate aim is a fast, attractive and efficient public transport scheme, which encourages people to use public transport facilities instead of cars, with the ultimate aim of easing traffic congestion - a major goal in busy Beijing.

With millions of cards and thousands of terminals being installed, modernizing the city's fare collection infrastructure is a huge investment. Therefore, the municipal government has set up a joint venture company, the Beijing Municipal Administration and Communication One Card Currency Corporation (BMAC), to manage the roll out of this major project. In the longer term, BMAC plans to implement the Beijing One Card in a wide range of other applications such as road-tolling, utility metering and e-business.

Crucial criteria for selecting MIFARE for the Beijing One Card Currency project were its broad market acceptance, its proven maturity as demonstrated by many successful projects around the world, and the fast and easy integration of MIFARE technology for large scale automatic fare collection systems. With an evolution path and roadmap clearly meeting tomorrow's market needs, together with a dual interface product portfolio for support of multi-application schemes, MIFARE was the ideal solution for Beijing public transport service providers.