Beijing is looking at introducing “bio-recognition technology”, including palm scanners and facial recognition cameras, to speed up passenger flow through subway stations at peak times, state media reported on Tuesday.
Beijing’s sprawling underground transport system plans to introduce the technologies this year, said Zhang Huabing, head of enterprise development for the main operator, Beijing Subway.
The facial recognition cameras would be able to detect people’s faces, potentially allowing them to bypass normal ticketing channels, while the palm scanners would enable some people to swipe their hands to get through ticket turnstiles.
Palm scanners were already being used on the Shanghai subway system, which compared scanned images with a database of prints in seconds.
It said Beijing has 22 urban railway lines and that more than 10 million passengers ride the city’s subway trains on an average working day.