Skip to main content

Singapore and China develop dual-currency transit card

In what is claimed to be a world first, the world's first dual currency transport smart card is being developed for use in Singapore and the Chinese province of Guangdong. The contactless smart card, or Sino visitor pass, will be launched in the first half of 2014 by Singapore payment service provider EZ-Link and Guangdong Lingnan Pass Company, allowing commuters to travel in both cities with just one card. The smart card will store both Singapore dollars and Chinese Renminbi and will also be accepted
August 22, 2013 Read time: 2 mins
In what is claimed to be a world first, the world's first dual currency transport smart card is being developed for use in Singapore and the Chinese province of Guangdong.

The contactless smart card, or Sino visitor pass, will be launched in the first half of 2014 by Singapore payment service provider EZ-Link and Guangdong Lingnan Pass Company, allowing commuters to travel in both cities with just one card.

The smart card will store both Singapore dollars and Chinese Renminbi and will also be accepted at more than 100,000 points in both cities, including retail and food and beverage.

Additional functions such as inter-city top-up features and the integration of e-tickets to hold products such as tourist passes will be progressively added after the launch.

"This means that in the future, visitors can also gain access to tourist attractions, food and beverage, retail deals and other lifestyle applications in both countries with this pass," said EZ-Link's CEO Nicholas Lee.

Related Content

  • Running on empty
    May 2, 2018
    Drivers are an increasingly rare species on Europe’s commuter metros as unattended train operation is embraced. David Crawford takes a low-speed tour of the continent’s capitals to see what’s happening. Unattended train operation (UTO) is fast becoming the norm for Europe’s metros, on existing as well as new lines. November 2017 statistics published by the International Association of Public Transport (UITP) show the continent as having 28% of the global total of route km on lines operating at the ultimate
  • Authorities look to MaaS for new solutions and cost savings
    July 18, 2017
    The structure of society and the way in which our cities work will be completely transformed by Mobility as a Service (MaaS), Finland’s minister of transport and communications Anne Berner, told ITS International’s recent MaaS Market conference 2017 in London. In her keynote address, Berner told a packed audience of more than 200 ITS professionals that MaaS has the potential to help governments around the world meet their big city targets such as the rate of employment, the environment, the efficient use of
  • Mobile ticketing ‘to grow at a 51 per cent CAGR by 2021’
    May 18, 2016
    The latest Smart Insights report, Smart ticketing on the Path to Dematerialization, explores the dynamics and the specificities of the smart ticketing business. It anticipates that in spite of the growth of software and service based solutions, public transport operators will issue over one billion smart cards by 2021. According to this research, mobile ticketing is expected to experience a CAGR (compounded annual growth rate) of 51 per cent over the 2016-2021 period while the share of contactless and ma
  • Changing roles in data collection for traffic management
    January 23, 2012
    Transport for Greater Manchester's David Hytch discusses the evolving roles of the public and private sector in managing and disseminating data. Data services for traffic management were once the sole preserve of public sector organisations, they being uniquely placed and equipped for the work involved. Now, though, this is changing. There is even a presumption in some countries that the private sector will take a greater, if not actually a lead, role in the provision of information for transport management