Urban rail heralds smart metro era for Yangtze River Delta

(ECNS) -- Changzhou Metro in Jiangsu Province officially joined the Yangtze River Delta urban rail circuit on Wednesday, heralding the connectivity of smart urban rail across China.

On Dec. 1, 2018, the first metro pass accessible to the Yangtze River Delta was simultaneously launched in Shanghai, Hangzhou and Ningbo in Zhejiang Province, with barriers to using the same QR codes at major subway stations across the delta removed.

Wenzhou in Zhejiang Province, Hefei in Anhui Province, as well as Nanjing, Suzhou, Wuxi, Xuzhou and Changzhou in Jiangsu Province joined later. Residents of any of the 10 cities can download the local subway APP for rides in any of the other 9 areas.

That means after one year's development, the Yangtze River Delta has become the first in China to realize full coverage of QR code connectivity services for regional urban rail systems.

Nearly 3 million trips have been served via urban rail connectivity.

A Shanghai metro official said e-tickets are the future trend and it will further boost the integrated development of the Yangtze River Delta and promote green travel between cities.