Ladies and Gentlemen, Meet Your New Beijing Subway Prices

According to brief statement in today's Beijing News, a decision has been reached on Beijing's new distance-based subway prices: Tickets will start at RMB 2 or 3, with the average overall fare to run between RMB 4.3 and RMB 4.4 – a price hike that more than doubles the fare yet keeps it lower than similar cities in China like Shanghai and Guangzhou.

It also appears they are concurrently launching a discount plan for frequent commuters that spend more than RMB 100 a month on public transport: fares above RMB 100 will be discounted at 20 percent, while fares in excess of RMB 150 will be discounted at 50%. Discounts will stop after total monthly expenditure reaches RMB 400.

Presuming the average subway commuter is traveling both to and from work 20 days a month, this should mean monthly commuting costs would average around RMB 150, or about USD 24 –  almost five times lower than a monthly pass on the New York City subway system.

This morning's Beijing News added that there will be a live discussion at 2:30pm today (Tuesday Oct 28) to settle the final as-to-yet undetermined portion of the pricing: whether the initial price will be RMB 2 (for the first 3km) or RMB 3 (for the first 6km).

No word yet on what the maximum fare will be, nor the distances at which the rates will go up, nor a timeline for implementation (which is not unusual as they like to announce these things slowly in bits and pieces, Chinese Water Torture style).

Previous announcements indicate the fare hike is likely to be implemented before the end of 2014. We'll keep you posted as the details continue to be leaked out, a bit at a time.

Table: Global Times

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Apparently the marathon hearing on the subway price plans just ended, and 23 of the 25 people that were selected to express their opinion chose Proposal B.

If this plan holds (I guess now it's gotta be rubber stamped by some other bunch of officials), here's what the new rates will look like (adapted from Global Times graphic):

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Here's more detail on the two proposals that are being discussed at a meeting that started at 2:30pm today:

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20

Article edited to include detail from this morning's newspaper:

This morning's Beijing News added that there will be a live discussion at 2:30pm today (Tuesday Oct 28) to settle the final as-to-yet undetermined portion of the pricing: whether the initial price will be RMB 2 (for the first 3km) or RMB 3 (for the first 6km)

Additionally, bus prices are also being discussed -- the choices under consideration are RMB 1 for first 5km or RMB 2 for first 10 km.

Books by current and former Beijinger staffers

http://astore.amazon.com/truerunmedia-20