When you travel in Beijing, the following vehicles are your necessity. Now we’ll give you some useful information about the three vehicles so that your plan your trip with ease and enjoy yourself by appreciating the beautiful sceneries along the road.
1. Buses in Beijing
The Beijing bus system is one of the city's hidden treasures. Beijing buses are cheap, convenient and have a huge offering. Be prepared that most bus drivers do not speak English and therefore it is advisable to have the name of your destination written in Chinese on a small paper.
The Beijing bus system is quite complex, moreover because of the language problems. Once you are familiar with the bus system (this takes a while) the buses can bring you practically everywhere around Beijing. The bus lines range from 1 – 1000.
City public buses run from 5:30 till 23:00 daily, and can get very crowded during rush hours (6:30-9:00 and 17:00-19:00). Normal buses charge starting from only 1 yuan, but those equipped with air-conditioning or running on express lines are charged according to the distance. Aircon buses at the airport will charge around 16 yuan.
2. Subway in Beijing
Beijing now has four subway lines:
a. Line 1 runs from the industrial Pingguoyuan area in west Beijing to Sihui East in eastern Beijing. It has 21 stops.
b. Line 2 is the loop line running under the interior 2nd Ring Road
c. Line 13 does an extended northern semi-loop from Dongzhimen via Huilongguan through to Xizhimen
d. The Batong Line extends from Sihui through to Tuqiao in eastern suburban Beijing.
The subway station entrances are identified by a large blue stylized letter B wrapped around a smaller letter D.
The subway is an excellent way to quickly get around the city and a traveller can easily figure it out through the station maps and English signs and language. The subway fare is around 3 yuan.
3. Taxis in Beijing
Taxis are the preferred choice for moving around, and are fairly inexpensive. Taxis charge standard rates per km. There are three types of taxis in Beijing;
a. The very cheap ones cost 1.20 Yuan per km. These are generally in pretty poor condition and often not clean at all. Check they have a working seatbelt before you go for it.
b. The next band of taxis cost 1.60 Yuan per km. These are usually slightly nicer, often with seatbelts.
c. The third band is luxurious executive cars and cost 2.00 Yuan per km., which is still very reasonable for a western budget.
Before taxi drives away make sure that the meter of the taxi is switched on, as many taxi drivers will try to cheat by not using the meter.
Since most taxi drivers cannot communicate in English it is advisable to have the name of your destination being written in Chinese on a small piece of paper. Besides the destination also bring along the address of your hotel or home, so that you always can return.
Some of the more tourist places have some fake taxis, they even have meters aboard. To determine whether a taxi is a fake one you have to look at the car's license plate. An official taxi's license plate starts with “B”, the fake ones have different letters (E / F / G or J).