HZM Bridge Shuttle Bus - WeChat Pay Platform

Introduction

After the completion of an important project of the 21st century, China’s Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge (HZMB), HZMB Shuttle Bus enables residents from the Mainland, Hong Kong, and Macau to easily travel to and from the three ports using public transportation, making it a hot attraction in the Zhuhai-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area (GBA). The HZMB Shuttle Bus carries a large number of passengers per day. The port halls have a high requirement regarding customs clearance speed. During the 2019 Spring Festival, the average daily passenger flow of the Hong Kong port exceeded 100,000 people. The platform serves the mainland tourists traveling between Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Macao to facilitate their transport ticket purchase, and has already provided travel services for 3 million passengers in half a year.

Challenges Faced

1. Payment inconvenience: Mainland tourists have become accustomed to convenient mobile payment solutions in Mainland China. They generally do not bring a lot of Hong Kong dollars with them, and it is extremely inconvenient to change money when purchasing tickets. This has also greatly affected the speed of customs clearance at the port.

2. Waiting a long time for ticket purchase: A lot of people gathering at the port hall to purchase tickets always results in long lines, causing a lot of time wasted, which creates a poor user experience.

3. High labor costs: Processing a large amount of cash for ticket purchases brings an additional workload that the bus operators have to deal with daily. The workload of the manual counters is also extremely high at peak hours.

Solutions & Results

1. The TVMs and manual counters are linked to WeChat Pay: This allows passengers to buy tickets at the ticketing hall via WeChat Pay. Some passengers going through the HZMB will purchase shuttle bus tickets at the port. To enhance visitor experience, tickets can be purchased without having to use Hong Kong dollars. The TVMs and manual counters at the port ticketing hall fully support WeChat Pay, which greatly facilitate passenger flow while ensuring a positive user experience. In addition, buying tickets via WeChat Pay shortens the time required for purchases and speeds up customs processing. This also helps bus operators improve the settlement efficiency of cross-border operations and on-site work efficiency, with reduced costs and better service quality.
2. Purchasing tickets in WeChat Official Account: In order to relieve the pressure of large passenger flow at peak hours and to reduce the time for passing through the customs, a WeChat Official Account is created for the HZMB Shuttle Bus, providing useful functions such as ticket purchasing, e-tickets, and schedules check. Tourists can check the bus schedules and purchase tickets in advance. Through the HZMB Shuttle Bus WeChat Official Account, WeChat users can get the information about travailing in Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Macao, and purchase tickets in advance for an easier travel. With WeChat Pay, users can purchase tickets more quickly. The platform also offers user reward points, coupons, and membership via WeChat Pay to build a comprehensive user management system, thus establishing long-term interactions with the Zhuhai, Hong Kong, and Macau users and achieving a higher user satisfaction. The cooperation with WeChat Pay allows bus operators to establish ongoing interactions with tourists from Mainland, Hong Kong, and Macau, and improve the user satisfaction.