Manila Bulletin, 03 January 2014

By Kris Bayos

 

Manila, Philippines – The single-ticketing system for the Light and Metro Rail Transit (LRT-MRT) will be implemented starting this year, with the Transportation Department set to award the Automated Fare Collection System (AFCS) contract early this year.

Transportation Secretary Joseph Emilio Abaya said AFCS infrastructure in one of the LRT lines 1 and 2 and MRT 3 would be set up within a year after the awarding of the P1.72-billion AFCS project.

Abaya said the Bids and Awards Committee is post-qualifying the bids of SM and the AF Consortia after the two bidders passed the financial bids evaluation of the Department of Transportation and Communications  (DOTC) Bids and Awards Committee.

SM Consortium offered a negative bid of P1,088,000 while AF Consortium offered another negative bid of P1,088,103.90.

By offering negative bids, the bidders are offering to implement the project at no cost to government and even offering to pay the State for it.

According to their documents, the SM Consortium represents several companies owned by the Sy family while the AF Consortium is led by the Ayala and Metro Pacific Investments Corp. groups.

“Within a year, we can get one line going and we expect all three lines to use the same card before the end of the term of President Aquino,” he said.

Abaya said single-ticketing will also be implemented eventually for fare collection at the heavy rail line of the Philippine National Railways and in public utility vehicles as well as toll collection at various expressways.

The P1.72-billion AFCS contract will cover the design, development, installation and implementation of the new AFCS system; the provision of the contactless media; the maintenance of the system for a concession period of 10 years; and the operation of an AFCS central clearing house.

The PPP project will entail contactless smart-card technology to replace the magnetic tickets being used to ride the LRT and MRT.

The contactless cards will only be tapped atop the readers installed at station gates while the magnetic cards have to be inserted in the readers before the passenger enters the station platform.

Once in place, the single-ticketing system will substantially lessen passenger queuing time and allow seamless transfers from one rail line to another.

The government wants a single ticketing system for the LRT and MRT to be in place before President Benigno Aquino III ends his tenure in 2016.

The DOTC said full implementation of the project is targeted by the third quarter of 2015.