Yang Cheng Tong () is a contactless rechargeable stored value

smartcard A smart card, chip card, or integrated circuit card (ICC or IC card) is a physical electronic authentication device, used to control access to a resource. It is typically a plastic credit card-sized card with an embedded integrated circuit (IC) c ...

designed for paying the travel fares in the

metro Metro, short for metropolitan, may refer to: Geography * Metro (city), a city in Indonesia * A metropolitan area, the populated region including and surrounding an urban center Public transport * Rapid transit, a passenger railway in an urba ...

bus A bus (contracted from omnibus, with variants multibus, motorbus, autobus, etc.) is a road vehicle that carries significantly more passengers than an average car or van. It is most commonly used in public transport, but is also in use for cha ...

es,

taxi A taxi, also known as a taxicab or simply a cab, is a type of vehicle for hire with a driver, used by a single passenger or small group of passengers, often for a non-shared ride. A taxicab conveys passengers between locations of their choice ...

s and

ferries A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water tax ...

Guangzhou Guangzhou (, ; ; or ; ), also known as Canton () and alternatively romanized as Kwongchow or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of Guangdong province in southern China. Located on the Pearl River about north-northwest of Hong Kon ...

China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...

, along with most other cities in

Guangdong Province Guangdong (, ), alternatively romanized as Canton or Kwangtung, is a coastal province in South China on the north shore of the South China Sea. The capital of the province is Guangzhou. With a population of 126.01 million (as of 2020) ...

, with the exception of

Shenzhen Shenzhen (; ; ; ), also historically known as Sham Chun, is a major sub-provincial city and one of the special economic zones of China. The city is located on the east bank of the Pearl River estuary on the central coast of southern province ...

. It was developed and managed by Guangzhou Yang Cheng Tong Limited, bus companies in Guangzhou, and the

Guangzhou Metro The Guangzhou Metro () ( and ) is the rapid transit system of the city of Guangzhou in Guangdong Province of China. It is operated by the state-owned Guangzhou Metro Corporation and was the fourth metro system to be built in mainland China, af ...

. The card is accepted by selected stores, parks, restaurants, parking meters, and in other establishments as payment. With the card holder's personal information stored in the Yang Cheng Tong, further functions can be applied, such as

access control In the fields of physical security and information security, access control (AC) is the selective restriction of access to a place or other resource, while access management describes the process. The act of ''accessing'' may mean consuming ...

of buildings and roll call in school. The system was successfully launched on 30 December 2001. According to official statistics from its operator, there are over 5 million cards in circulation and 2.2 million transactions per day. Yang Cheng Tong literally means ''Ram City Pass'', since the ''Five Rams'' () statue is one of the important

landmark A landmark is a recognizable natural or artificial feature used for navigation, a feature that stands out from its near environment and is often visible from long distances. In modern use, the term can also be applied to smaller structures or f ...

s in Guangzhou.

Type of cards

There are different types of the Yang Cheng Tong card: *Standard card: sold for deposit value of 20RMB. Deposit will be refunded when the card is returned. Also available with China T-union standard, which can be use nationwide. *Commemorative card: available in Standard card sizes or different sizes. Deposit not included and refund of this type is prohibited. *Xeno-card: used with wearable devices through NFC or SIM cards. *Enterprise card *Joint card: co-iusses with local banks. *Tour Pass *Yang Cheng Tong QR Code: payments through

QR Code A QR code (an initialism for quick response code) is a type of matrix barcode (or two-dimensional barcode) invented in 1994 by the Japanese company Denso Wave. A barcode is a machine-readable optical label that can contain information about th ...

s by multiple parties.

References

External links

Yang Cheng Tong official website
{{Chinese smartcards Guangzhou Transport in Guangdong Contactless smart cards Fare collection systems in China Payment systems