THE Metro and bus services in Shenzhen will upgrade their system to be compatible with the China T-Union transport cards, the IC transport cards promoted by the Ministry of Transport.

The Metro services in Guangdong, including those in Guangzhou, Shenzhen and Dongguan, will complete the upgrade before the end of November to ensure their service terminals are compatible with the national T-Union cards.

By then, all 21 prefecture-level cities in Guangdong will use T-Union cards.

Cardholders can pay their bus and Metro fares at public transport facilities in Guangdong cities that display the T-Union logo.

The cards will be issued June 28 at the seventh anniversary of Guangdong Lingnan Pass Shareholding Co. Ltd., which is the issuer of the smart transport card for Guangdong Province.

Before the end of November, a total of 100,000 cards will have been issued.

In 2017, 14 cities in Guangdong completed the upgrade.

The T-Union card will cover 220 cities in China by the end of the year, as the nation looks to improve links between urban and rural areas by 2020.

The system is already in use in 190 cities, according to a press conference held by the Ministry of Transport in March. There are 13 million cards covering key areas, such as the Yangtze River Delta, the Pearl River Delta and the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region. They can be used on buses, subways, taxis, ferries and for shared bikes.

T-Union cards were rolled out in 2015, as several transport departments in the Beijing-Tianjin-Hebei region piloted the project before promoting it across the country. (Richard Han)