A special pass for intercity commuters between Shanghai and Kunshan or Taicang.

At Anting checkpoint on Cao’an Highway, a special lane is now reserved for people with commuter passes from 7am to 9am and from 4pm to 6pm every day.

For people who live in Kunshan or Taicang, in Jiangsu Province, but work in Jiading District of Shanghai, a special commuting pass can save them significant time now that strict border control measures have been imposed.

Normally, people who enter Shanghai will have to have their residence and employment information verified and be placed under home quarantine, which poses a problem for companies in Jiading which have employees living in other cities.

The commuting passes, however, are meant to indicate that an individual has been certified as healthy and should therefore be exempted from certain containment measures. With such passes, commuters between Shanghai and Jiangsu Province need only to show their identity cards, although people from Kunshan are also required to show a pass issued by their residential complex.

The new policy, which is reciprocal, is the result of an agreement signed by the Jiading District government and its counterparts in Kunshan and Taicang last week.

Companies in Jiading can apply for such passes for their employees in need from the district government.

At the Anting checkpoint on Cao’an Highway, the only checkpoint between Anting Town in Jiading and Huaqiao Town in Kunshan, a separate lane is now reserved for people with the special passes from 7am to 9am and from 4pm to 6pm every day.

The Jiading District government said the new measures meet the needs of an increasing number of people going back to work in recent days. About 10,000 people and 3,500 motor vehicles enter Shanghai through the Anting checkpoint daily, where the average waiting time is now one hour.

It’s estimated that up to 15,000 motor vehicles, 5,000 non-motor vehicles and 1,500 pedestrians will enter Shanghai via this checkpoint when work resumes as normal for everyone, the government said.

Xiang Dongyuan, a human resource manager for a company based in Anting, said that over 300 of its employees who live in Huaqiao now spend an hour less on the road with the special passes as they commute between the two cities.