Beijing Bus

Fares

Under the new fare scheme implemented on December 28, 2014, bus fares cost RMB(¥)2.00 for the first 10 km and ¥1.00 for each additional 5 km. Yikatong card users are entitled to a 50% discount and students enjoy a 75% discount.

Prior to the fare hike, bus fares were as low as ¥1 and the Yikatong discount was 60%.

Riders carrying bulky luggage that take up the space of another passenger will have to purchase a second bus fare. A child below the height of 1.2m rides for free when accompanied by a paying rider. Bearers of Retired Cadres' Honorary Certificates and blind individuals can also ride public buses for free.

Buying tickets

On buses with a ticket clerk on board, the clerk can sell paper tickets and give exact change. The ticket clerk will ask riders deboarding the bus to show the paper ticket they had purchased, their bus pass or swipe their discount card. On bus routes designated as having no ticket clerks (无人售票), riders must pay exact fare in cash, show the driver their bus pass, or swipe a discount card when they board and deboard the bus.

Discount card

Riders paying with the Yikatong metrocard receive 50% discount off the cash fare. Hence, with a Yikatong card, the starting becomes ¥1.00 per ride. Riders with the student metro card enjoy 70% discount off the cash fare. Riders must swipe twice, both on boarding and deboarding the bus, so the trip distance can be calculated.

Until the introduction of the Yikatong metrocard in 2006, Beijing Bus Passes were a popular choice for discounted bus fare. Bus passes are available for three days (¥10 for a maximum of 18 rides), seven days (¥20 for 42 rides), 15 days (¥40 for 90 rides). The Yikatong has no expiration date and has a lower per ride cost. The Yikatong card can be purchased or have value added at any Beijing Subway station or at any of 89 bus stops around the city.

Hours

Service on most bus lines begins between 5:00 and 6:00 and end between 20:00 and 23:00. The 夜-series night bus lines begin service at or after 23:00 and run until between 4:30 and 5:00.

Bus stops

Bus stops are marked with route signs that indicate the name of the stop, route number, hours of operation, fare schedule and each stop on the route. Bus route signs are only in Chinese.

Boarding protocol

On buses with two doors, the front door is used for entry and the back door for deboarding. On articulated buses with three doors, the middle door is used for entry and the front and rear doors for deboarding.

Routes

BPT's buses use the following route number scheme and fare schedule.

Other character designations in line numbers:

Bus route enquiry service

The BPT provides enquiry services via both its official website and the 96166 telephone helpline.

Free Wi-Fi service

As of August 17, 2013, free wi-fi service is available on 5,823 buses on 248 bus routes, mostly inside the Third Ring Road. By December 2, 2014, about 12,000 buses had been outfitted with free Wi-Fi service.

History

Public bus service in Beijing dates to 1921 when the Beiyang Government established a trolley company in the city. Tram service began in the city in 1924. The first bus route in Beijing was launched in 1925 when the Beiping Bus Preparatory Committee acquired 30 buses for the city. In 1947, the Beiping Municipal Bus Company was established with 133 buses, but the company shut down in August 1949 during the Chinese Civil War with 79 broken down buses and only five working buses. In January 1949, after the capture of Beiping by the People's Liberation Army in the Beiping-Tianjin Campaign, there were only 103 trams and 61 buses in the city, which delivered 28.85 million trips that year. From November 1949 to March 1950, 88 U.S.-made Dodge T234 buses were shipped from Shanghai and became the mainstay of the Beijing bus fleet. Due to fuel shortages caused by a US-imposed trade embargo, the buses were converted to burn wood.

In the early 1950s, the bus fleet expanded with imports from Eastern Europe, including 76 Ikarus Bus from Hungary. Among the most advanced vehicles were Škoda buses from Czechoslavakia, which could carry 50 passengers and reach a speed of 60 km/h. A total of 52 Škoda-built trolleybuses were acquired, all being of that maker's 8Tr model.

The first domestic made buses entered service in 1956. They were trucks made in Changchun with wooden carriages added by the Beijing Passenger Vehicle Factory. Later, the BK640 bus used metal carriages modeled upon Skoda buses. Domestic buses gradually replaced imports.

By 1956, there were 27 bus and tram bus routes, totaling 357 km (222 mi) in length which delivered 235 million trips. In 1958, the first long-distance bus company was established in the city with 114 vehicles, 54 routes and 9.69 million rides delivered. From 1956 to 1966, trolleybuses gradually replaced trams in the city and the number of bus lines grew from 27 to 56 and the length routes reached 157 km (98 mi). During the Great Leap Forward, due to diesel shortages caused by the cut-off of Soviet oil exports to China, 130 Beijing buses were converted to burn natural gas in 1960. The buses, which carried fuel in an inflated bag on the roof, were converted back to burning diesel in 1964, after the discovery of oil in Daqing eased the energy shortage.

In the 1980s to the mid-1990s, the capacity of bus service in Beijing grew slowly. From 1984 to the end of 1995, the number of bus routes grew from 101 to 246, the number of vehicles increased by 558 or 16.6% to 3,927, and the number of rides rose by 1.06 billion to 3.11 billion, an increase of 293%. In 1990, the first double-decker special bus line entered service, which increased to five lines by 1995.

During the Tiananmen Square protests in the spring of 1989, residents and students used buses and trolleys to block the advance of the army into the city and many vehicles were destroyed during the armed crackdown.

In March 1997, two bombs detonated on Beijing buses. The first bomb hit a Route 22 Bus in Xidan on the night of March 7, killing three and injuring ten. The second bomb, one day later, claimed two more lives. The bombings, which followed the outbreak of protests and bombings in Xinjiang, took place during the annual session of the National People's Congress and the People's Consultative Conference in Beijing, and were widely blamed on Uyghur separatists.

In July 1997, Beijing inaugurated air-conditioned bus service with the launch of Route 808 (currently Route 608) from the Summer Palace to Qianmen.

In 1999, the first compressed natural gas buses were introduced to the bus fleet. By the end of 2000, the city had 5,923 natural gas powered buses in operation, the most in the world. Also in the 1999, the 24-hour bus information hotline 96166 was introduced to help riders plan bus trips.

During the 2001 Summer University Games held in Beijing, the Beijing Bus Transit service provided free shuttle service, delivering 731,777 trips. The first electric buses entered service in September 2003.

In 2005, the first Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) line entered operation. In 2006, the city adopted a new bus fare scheme, fixing the flat-fare rate to ¥1.00 and giving 60% discount to Yikatong riders and 80% discount to student card holders. Also in 2006, the first hydrogen powered bus entered service. In 2007, after the introduction of the reduced fare scheme, the number of rides increased by 20% to 4.097 billion.

The city's first designated bus lanes were introduced in 2007 to increase bus travel speed during rush hours. Buses are also exempt from the city's road rationing schemes, which was introduced in 2008, and restricts vehicle access to the city's roadways based on license plate number. On 31 July 2008, three more BRT lines entered operation.

Free Wi-Fi service on city buses was initiated in 2013.

On December 28, 2014, bus fare on all routes was changed to a distance-based fare schedule, which raised the starting fare to ¥2.00 per trip for the first 10 km with ¥1.00 added for each subsequent 5 km. The Yikatong discount was reduced from 60% to 50%.

Security

To enhance security on buses, over 1,000 uniformed security guards were assigned to some 16 bus routes on an experimental basis in late 2013. As of June 2014, the practice is being continued with security personnel riding on 15 routes including 57, 特11 and 特12. About 4,000 buses are being outfitted with surveillance cameras.

Hydrogen fuel-cell bus

Hydrogen-powered fuel-cell buses began operating in Beijing on an experimental basis in 2006. Three fuel cell buses, made by Daimler in Germany and purchased with a grant from the U.N. Development Programme, plied an 18.2-km route from the North Gate of the Summer Palace to Wudaokou. They were the first fuel cell buses to enter operation in China. The technology has not gained broader use in the city because air pollution reduced the efficiency and operating life of fuel cells.

Straddling bus

The Beijing public transit authorities experimented with a new type of public transport vehicle called the 3D Express Coach, also known as the straddling bus. The first straddling bus was expected to begin trial operation in Mentougou District in late 2010.

Cultural

The Beijing Public Transport Museum at 91 Fahua Temple Road in Dongcheng District, just east of the Temple of Heaven, has a collection of vintage bus, trolleybus and trams used in Beijing.

The Beijing Public Transport Holdings, Ltd. funded a football club called the Beijing Bus FC, which competed in China League Two and played home games at the Chaolai Football Centre. The team disbanded after the 2006 season.