Shenzhen’s taxis are about to go upscale.
The city is installing five inch LED screens in taxis that will show your location on a map using GPS, and perhaps most importantly allow for multiple payment options. That’s right, soon you can pay for your taxi using your Shenzhen Tong travel card, Unionpay, or even Alipay account.
The device will also have other features to assist the driver, such as call centre alerts. At the moment, taxi drivers need to pick up their phones to answer phone calls from the call centre, which isn’t always safe to do. To cut down on the chance of an accident, the driver can now just press a button on the screen to call back or answer phone calls.
There are about 16,000 taxis roaming the city’s streets, and all of them are slated to receive the new device by the summer.