Guangzhou Shenzhen Line Quickpass

[Takeshi]

So apparently the old Guangzhou Shenzhen line is accepting Quickpass payment. (http://m.xinhuanet.com/gd/2018-05/19/c_1122855475.htm)

 

Sounds pretty cool.

 

Anyone try this? Can foreigners use it? How do you setup Quickpass on a phone? (I assume it's safer than just using the plain card.)

[ChTTay]

Copy and pasting the link doesn’t work for me! Copy paste adds some stuff into the address I think. 

[roddy]

Works fine here, but I've edited the link to be clickable. Any similar problems maybe start a help topic, although I suspect a browser plugin might be the issue.

[Takeshi]

So I went to try and sign-up for this the other day. The first machine had a scanner that could read passports or home-return permits, but when I went through the sign-up procedure for the program on that machine, it just kept asking me to put my 身份证 over the reader, and wasn't able to read my passport. (It kept saying failed to read, please try again, or something like that.) Pretty much nobody at the station could help me, and after asking many people for help, eventually some station manager person told me that the program was only for Chinese people and foreigners can't use it. She claimed although you could use a passport, it meant Chinese passport.

 

To be honest I don't really believe her, it was probably some sort of technical issue that they didn't want to fix, but either way I couldn't get it done.

[889]

I recently came across a couple of ticket machines in another city that were clearly marked for passport acceptance, and had the software installed to accept passports: buttons to push to use a passport and images showing you how to put it into the reader. But there was no reader attached! Like you, I asked and they said it's not ready yet. But I took it as a sign that China Rail is at least working on this. 等一等！

[Takeshi]

That's good to hear, hope it will be ready one day.

[889]

There are now some machines at Shenzhen Station that are clearly marked to accept passports: you're supposed to swipe the bottom of the main page with the machine-readable text through a reader. But it wouldn't work for me. I asked at the ticket counter if the machines really accepted passports, and the seller said they did, but that the page on some passports was too shiny to be read.

[ChTTay]

2 hours ago, 889 said:

too shiny to be read

I read that the engineers working on this project struggled for months with shiny passports. The whole project left them scratching their heads and asking “why are passports so shiny anyway?”. 

 

?

[suMMit]

广州站 ， 中山北 and 深圳 all have machines that will spit tickets out with a passport and the booking number. Ive seen it somewhere else too , (南昌 maybe?)

[suMMit]

@889 I use the Shenzhen one quite regularly, so it definitely works. Luohu stn across from the 麦当劳 theres a bank of like 10 machines

[889]

My thought is to photocopy the machine-readable text on the main passport page, paste it on a card, and try that to eliminate the too-glossy passport page problem.

 

(I was referring to Shenzhen Station, at Luohu.)

 

And note too that according to the signs you can also buy tickets with a passport on the machines, in addition to picking up tickets you bought online. If your Chinese isn't up to snuff yet, be aware it's all in Chinese, unless there's an ENG button somewhere I missed.

[Takeshi]

Oh, I haven't looked at this topic for a while. I never got the QuickPass to work with this train line, and it seems the machines that looked like they accepted passports disappeared.

 

But I have some good news:

 

The other day I heard that Alipay offered a QR code station entering service. (see this news article: http://jt.gz.bendibao.com/news/2019121/247397.shtml

 

And it works for foreigners too. You need to search the mini app in Alipay, and be at the station when you want to register. Hit the register button, it'll ask you to go to a magic gate and scan your passport, QR code, and face, and then you're registered. After that, you just need to open the Alipay app QR code to ride.

 

I have no idea what will happen when your passport expires.

[889]

The official 12306 app has a similar option now to register with a photo and your passport. But like you predicted, you seem to run into a wall if you have a new passport.

 

As to swiping your passport in those machines, it seems there's a knack to it: you have to swipe smoothly and quickly. Of course when it doesn't work the first time, the natural reaction is to slide it more slowly through the slot, and that it turns out is wrong.

[Takeshi]

I have never figured out what the point of adding your passport photo to the 12306 app is. I never got it to work (I keep having trouble uploading the photos), but the app otherwise works normally for me. (I have verified my number)

[suMMit]

Not sure if its relevant to this discussion, but i believe now you simply scan your passport at the entrance to the platform. You need no paper ticket all. only your passport and your booking from ctrip or wherever. At least this has worked for to and from other cities recently  and for colleagues going to from sz.

[Takeshi]

Oh, I had no idea. I had always been collecting my ticket from the 人工 booth (and still scanning my passport). Thanks for the info.

[889]

You may still have to: it depends on the station and the line you're using. At some point it should be system-wide, at least for HSR.