Another Chinese city allows subway rides by swiping phones

HANGZHOU - Swipe your mobile phone and board the subway train. The eastern city of Hangzhou on Wednesday became the latest to follow the trend.

Passengers in Hangzhou, capital of Zhejiang province, can use the Alipay app to create a payment code and point it to a subway ticketing gate to enter. They can use it on buses too.

The ubiquitous app enables people to use the system regardless of the phones they use, according to Hangzhou metro group. The system also takes payment from bankcards and wearables embedded with UnionPay's contactless smart chips.

Cities like Beijing, Shenzhen and Hefei begun allowing mobile payment in subways earlier this year, but the system used in Beijing subways for example does not work with Apple phones.

The Hangzhou company said mobile payment saves passengers' time and will help shorten queues at rush hours. Passing through the ticketing gate is now 2.5 times faster.

The service is available on Hangzhou's Line 2 which opened Wednesday and will be expanded to all 72 subway stations in the city, the company said.