In late October this year, Beijing Subway welcomed its first-ever coffee shop, which is located within Guomao Station on Line 1. After four years of exploration and development, the city's subway has expanded its offerings to include a wider range of public amenities, beyond convenience stores alone.

Commuters now can grab a hot breakfast right inside some of the stations. Youngsters can find "mystery boxes" containing trendy toys on the go. Tourists and business travelers can find luggage lockers at several stations. Numerous power banks are available for rental at more than 300 stations, mitigating many people’s low-battery anxiety.

Shifting from offering convenience to addressing everyday needs, Beijing Subway is unlocking the stations' commercial potential to infuse every trip with greater warmth and ease.

Next to Entrance/Exit C of Jintai Xizhao Station on Line 10, the "Meituan Shiguangji" (美团食光机) breakfast cart starts its service at 7:30 sharp every day. There are insulated boxes filled with steaming breakfast items—from meat-stuffed flatbreads to soy milk and rice porridge.

Currently, the "Meituan Shiguangji" food carts can be found at 31 subway stations, with those at busy locations each handling 200 orders per day.

Guided by passengers' needs for convenient and diversified services, Beijing Subway began piloting six types of people-oriented service offerings in March 2023, including flower vending machines, food carts, "urban living rooms" (public rest areas), "small stops" (spaces for commercial campaigns), luggage lockers, and shared power banks.

Taking into account the differentiated positioning of individual stations, Beijing Subway has refined its service categories accordingly. Nowadays, the lines operated by Beijing Subway Limited have 102 convenience stores, more than 1,900 commercial self-service machines, 30 flower vending machines, and 35 food carts. A total of 171 luggage-locker units have been installed across 76 stations serving cultural tourism attractions, commercial districts, and transport hubs, while 678 shared power banks are available at 330 stations on 17 lines. Multiple lines now offer 207 free drinking-water dispensers, and commercial equipment coverage has reached 97.25 percent of all stations. In the first half of 2025, convenient facilities, including those mentioned above, served passengers over 10 million times, indicating a year-on-year increase of more than 20 percent. These changes show that a broad and well-connected network of in-station public-service amenities has been formed.

(Source: Beijing Daily App)