Nantong West Railway Station in Nantong, Jiangsu province, started offering e-card services on Aug 20, meaning passengers no longer need to buy tickets before boarding high-speed trains.

E-card service on the homepage of the 12306 app. [Photo provided to en.nantong.gov.cn]

The railway station also launched the reservation and ID card scanning functions for entering and leaving the station on the same day.

Passengers can reserve a train seat or, if there are remaining tickets available on the public network, can simply scan the QR code to board the train.

After activating the e-card service on the Railway 12306 mobile app, the State-run train ticket booking platform, passengers just need to scan the QR code on the e-card service page to pass the gate machine and board intercity trains.

All stations along the Shanghai-Nanjing Yangtze River High-Speed Railway and Shanghai-Suzhou-Nantong Railway also started offering e-card services on the same day.

Stations along the Shanghai-Nanjing Railway, Nanjing-Qidong Railway, and Nanjing-Anqing High-Speed Railway, including the Qidong, Haimen, Nantong, Rugao, Hai'an stations, which already offer e-card services, also added a reservation function and expanded e-card services to all the trains that pass by the stations on the three railways.

"Scan QR code to board" icon on the page of the e-card service. [Photo provided to en.nantong.gov.cn]

How do you activate the e-card service on the 12306 app?

Click the "e-card service" icon on the app's homepage, then the "scan QR code to board" icon to fill in your personal information.