The joint venture of Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. (AF consortium) on Tuesday confirmed their plan to use cellphones as a medium in riding the Light Rail Transit (LRT) and Metro Rail Transit (MRT).
The AF Consortium is composed of AC Infrastructure Holdings Corp, BPI Card Finance Corp, Globe Telecom Inc, Meralco Financial Services Corp, MPIC and Smart Communications Inc.
“Wala nang bubunot sa bulsa ng wallet. Ang cellphone na mismo ang magiging ticket. All commuters have cellphones, so hindi na sila mahihirapan. Kung nasa LRT1 ka, hindi na kailangan bumili pa ng ticket if you’re in MRT3,” said Noel Kintanar, spokesperson of the AF Consortium.
In another interview, MPIC president Jose Ma. K. Lim said:
"We will upgrade 44 stations across the line and we will do it in 18 months. We will not charge the passengers a single centavo. All of the capex, we will recover this through the use of the cards in other places like the convenience store, bus and coffee shop."
At present, there are 328 turnstiles at LRT 1, 229 at LRT 2 and 171 at MRT 3.
"The benefits to the riding public will be first, there is no long queues at stations to buy their tickets. The turnstile will be upgraded from two passengers per minute to 35 passengers per minute. Malaking improvement yan. They can also buy it in any of the outlets and they will be able to load it through a number of options -- cash link, credit cards or through mobile phones," Lim said.
The AF Consortium’s new smart card ticketing system will replace the existing magnetic stripe system. The new system can also serve as an electronic micropayment solution in day-to-day payments, or as identifier for loyalty schemes, facility access and location-based services.
Ayala and MPIC are partnering with MSI Global, a world-class rail, transport and retail payments provider using similar technology. It has implemented similar payment solutions worldwide, including the EZ link card in Singapore.
Similar to Hong Kong's "Octopus" card, the Philippine version would allow daily commuters to use a single ticket when they ride the LRT Lines 1 and 2, as well as the MRT Line 3. The three rail services have a combined ridership of a million a day.
The AF Consortium made the "most advantageous offer," proposing not only to undertake the modernization project, but also to make premium payments to government in the amount of P1,088,103,900.
The SM Consortium submitted the second-best offer with P1,088,000,000.
The DOTC said this means the government can implement a common ticketing system for the MRT and LRT, and at the same time generating revenues for the government without passing the cost to passengers.
Under the concession agreement, the AFCS ticketing system will be implemented at the LRT and MRT by September 2015.--Source: News5/ABS-CBN