Beijing announced it would ban "uncivilized behavior" in subways from Wednesday, including eating and playing loud music, and those who fail to adhere will get stains on their personal credit reports.
Subway passengers will be banned from eating, occupying extra seats, promoting sales or using folding bicycles, auto-balancing bikes or scooters inside subway cars or in the subway station, according to the newly revised regulation released on Wednesday by the Beijing Municipal Commission of Transport.
The regulation also forbids the use of electronic cigarettes, loitering around near emergency areas at subway stations, using fake tickets and misusing escalators.
To better enforce the regulation, the commission said violations will be included in personal credit records. For those who refuse to stop misbehaving, it said subway stations could deny them service.
A bad record in the personal credit system may affect applying for loans or taking high-speed trains or flights. A total of 381 people with bad credit records were banned from flying in July 2018, according to data from creditchina.gov.cn.
China plans to build a government-led national social credit system by 2020 to assess individuals, enterprises and government agencies on credit, according to an outline issued by the State Council in 2014.
Many uncivilized behavior on subways do not violate laws, but giving them bad credit records would serve as a warning to others, Zhu Lijia, a professor of public management at the Chinese Academy of Governance in Beijing, told the Global Times on Wednesday.
Bad records could be removed if violators volunteer their services at subway stations, the commission said.
