Alipay, AMAP, and Sina Weibo, together with traffic police in Shenzhen and Ningbo, announced on Tuesday the launch of the project of “internet plus traffic control”. This will involve using mobile payments, big data and online portals to make traffic management more efficient.
With its real-name registration, Alipay saves drivers the trouble of filling their personal information for authentication, and allows them to pay traffic tickets via the app, an act which can take as little as 10 seconds. Accomplishing the same task offline may take at least 30 minutes waiting in line.
In fact, during the two months trial in Ningbo, over 600,000 traffic tickets were paid in this way, with nearly two million drivers following the service, which currently covers around 80 cities in China. Additionally, users can be reached via the Alipay app when traffic police have important information or notices to pass on.
Alibaba-backed AMAP, on the other hand, opens up the big data on traffic it collects to local traffic management departments, helping the latter to not only analyze the real-time traffic, but also predict future flows of traffic to prevent possible problems.
In addition, microblogging services launched by city governments and departments are making a microblog service portal that has gained tens of thousands of followers.
Last April, 12 cities including Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen signed with Alibaba, Ant Financial, and Sina Weibo to develop smart city initiatives, which makes public services more efficient by moving them online.
Mobile payment, big data analysis, and online service portal may indeed make traffic management easier for the police, and better for the public.
(Top photo from Baidu Images)