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Friday, March 29, 2024

Government scraps electronic fare card fees, charges

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The Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board on Wednesday issued an order removing the charges and fees on automated fare collection system (AFCS) cards for public utility vehicles.

“Now and therefore, for and in consideration of the foregoing, and to alleviate the burden of the riding public, this board directs all public utility vehicle operators and/or automatic fare collection system to remove any charges of fees imposed for the purchase/use of their cards on top of the fare load,” the LTFRB said in its Memorandum Circular No. 2020-057.

“Failure of the concerned operator and/or provider to comply with this issuance shall cause for the immediate suspension of the automatic fare collection system, aside from the penalties to be imposed pursuant to existing issuances of this board against the operators concerned,” the circular added.

The circular will take effect on October 9 this year.

President Duterte earlier directed to give out AFCS cards for free, although the fare load should still be paid by commuters.

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The Department of Transportation earlier suspended the mandatory use of Beep cards at the EDSA Busway after the AF Payments Inc., refused to make the cards free.

AF Payments instead offered 125,000 beep cards for free to ease the burden of commuters and proposed a QR Code system for EDSA Busway.

“We note the offer of Beep to provide 125,000 cards. But that is different from the actual call which is for beep to waive their card fee (P80) and other charges such as reloading fee, convenience fee, among others. We will discuss their offer in due time, but to date, the no beep card no ride policy is still suspended in the EDSA Busway. A dual payment system will still be honored,” DOTr Spokesperson Goddess Hope Libiran said.

Libiran added that the government is opening its doors to other AFCS providers who can provide a better solution.

“We are open to the idea of having multiple service providers, as long as their systems are ready for integration and interoperability, and no fee shall be charged to commuters for the purchase/use of their system,” she added.

She said the move to look for other cashless payment providers aims to avoid a monopoly, noting providers must also be ready for integration and interoperability with other payment providers.

“Their systems should be open and ready for integration and interoperability. [DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade] also noted that charges in operating the system must not be shouldered by commuters,” she added.

In a television interview, DOTr Secretary Arthur Tugade discussed the possibility of regulating the cashless payment providers in public transport as part of the oversight function of the DOTr.

“I believe we can create a regulation, rules, or guidelines so we can have a platform where a payment card is free,” Tugade said.

Tugade said the DOTr has yet to accept AFPI’s offer to give away 125,000 Beep cards.

“I said, if you accept their offer, we might get stalled. You shouldn’t accept that,” Tugade said.

He said all the proposals coming from other payment providers should be studied first, including the offer of AFPI.

He said the mandatory use of Beep cards in the EDSA Busway remain suspended for at least five days from Monday (October 5), noting that afterwards, Beep cards are either free or there will be a different payment provider.

“Immediately there must be an implementation of an acceptable protocol which will be predicated on what: ‘libre’ (free),” Tugade said.

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