LRT2 smart ticketing plan delayed

AF Payments Inc., a company implementing a smart card ticketing system for Metro Manila’s elevated railways, said it would miss the May 2015 deadline it had planned for the Light Rail Transit Line 2 as testing was still ongoing.

Despite the delay, AF Payments, led by conglomerates Metro Pacific Investments Corp. and Ayala Corp., said it was still keeping its September 2015 deadline to roll out the system across LRT2, LRT1 and the Metro Rail Transit Line 3. The three lines serve about a million commuters daily.

AF Payments’ system, which will use a card dubbed the “beep card,” aims to provide a “tap and go” platform similar to the Octopus system in Hong Kong.

“The ongoing testing is aimed at further strengthening the operational readiness of the new system originally scheduled to go live at LRT2 this May,” AF Payments said in a statement. Peter Maher, CEO of AF Payments, said the rollout for the LRT2 would happen by June this year.

“With this development, AF Payments asks for the continued patience and understanding of train commuters. We remain committed to the on-time deployment of a new, reliable and unified rail ticketing system in the Philippines,” the company said in the statement.

Ayala and Metro Pacific are leading the project after winning the P1.7-billion automated fare collection system under the deal public private partnership (PPP) framework in 2014.