New beep cards, same long lines

ADJUSTING TO BEEP CARDS The new tap-and-go cards fail to eliminate long lines of commuters on Monday at MRT 3 stations on Edsa. The reloadable beep cards can now be used at LRT 1, LRT 2 and MRT 3, providing a seamless transfer from one line to another. RAFFY LERMA

BEEP CARDS did not live up to their promise of eliminating long lines at Metro Rail Transit (MRT) Line 3 early Monday when most passengers used them for the first time.

As early as 5 a.m., passengers complained of lining up for more than an hour just to buy their beep cards.

Asked about complaints of long lines in some stations despite the use of beep cards, AF Payments Inc., which operates the beep system, said it was understandable as train operators were using new machines and the public was still not familiar with how the new system works.

AF Payments Inc. is an Ayala Corp. and Metro Pacific Investments Corp.-backed consortium.

Despite the long lines, Peter Maher, CEO and president of AF Payments, said it had so far been smooth sailing for the new system since its introduction at the MRT 3 on Saturday.

“We’ve been watching for the past two days and the machines are up and running. Everything is new. New cards, new readers, new experience for the riders who will tap their cards using new equipment,” Maher said in a media briefing on Monday at the MRT 3 Ayala Station.

For 54-year-old Lorna Ansaldo, the public still needs assistance to familiarize itself with the beep system.

“For the first month, people should still be assisted in using beep cards,” Ansaldo said.

Period of adjustment

MRT-3 General Manager Roman Buenafe said people still needed to adjust to the new ticketing system but noted that this was much better than the 16-year-old one that it replaced.

“We are still asking for the public’s patience as we are also still adjusting to this newly introduced process,” Buenafe said.

He said he expected the people to adjust to this in less than two months.

Quezon City resident James Philipp Guevarra, who uses the MRT daily to Makati City, told the Inquirer that the use of the beep card shortened his travel time by 30 minutes.

“This can be attributed to the new machines used because they are still very fast but we don’t know how long they will work that way,” Guevarra said.

Seamless transfer

The beep card was rolled out at LRT-2 on July 20 and at LRT-1 on Aug. 16. MRT-3, LRT-1 and LRT-2 serve more than a million commuters daily.

Now that beep cards can be used to access the three train lines in Metro Manila, AF Payments Inc. has achieved the aim “to provide a seamless transfer from one line to another,” Maher said.

“Commuters can now enjoy this convenience and we hope that the beep cards’ interoperability feature will offer some improvement to the overall commuting experience of Filipinos,” he said.

In the past, train riders who had to transfer between the LRT and the MRT, which ran on two different payment systems, needed two different payment cards. This meant longer queuing times.

When the beep cards were presold last week, the MRT-3 claimed that 50,000 cards were sold at MRT stations.

Convenience stores

Maher said the company planned to sell these beep cards at convenience stores and retail partners by the end of the year.

“This means you can load from these stores. We are talking to all of them because we want every Filipino to have every beep card in their pockets,” Maher added.

The beep card costs P100 with an initial load of P80. It is reloadable with P11 as the minimum and P10,000 as the maximum.

In the preselling of beep cards last week in key MRT stations, a total of 50,000 beep cards were sold, AF Payment said. Total sales to date have already exceeded 600,000 cards.

AF Payments implemented the project after its shareholders won the automated fare collection system public private partnership project in 2014. With a report from Miguel R. Camus