https://www.straitstimes.com/tech/tech-news/drastic-simplygo-move-puzzling-in-the-absence-of-big-picture-transport-payment-plans
2024-01-22
SINGAPORE – From June 1, commuters will need to change out or update their existing travel cards to pay for bus and train rides.
This is due to a decision by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to move the bulk of commuters to its SimplyGo account-based ticketing platform.
But things are not so simple, as new or updated travel cards that work with SimplyGo – unlike the old ones – cannot be used to pay for retail and motoring expenses, such as parking and Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) fees. This means yet another card to keep in one’s wallet.
What’s more, with SimplyGo, fares charged and the remaining stored value on the card will also no longer be displayed on bus and train fare readers, in a move criticised to have placed organisational cost-cutting over public convenience.
The lack of response by LTA to a barrage of questions posed online and in The Straits Times Forum added to public outrage. Memes such as SimplyNoGo, SimplyCannotGo and SimplyGo Away have also been created to show displeasure.
Double the trouble?
The growing bulge in people’s wallets today is a deja vu of miscalculations in the smart card space years ago.
It beats many why a small nation such as Singapore – with an average public transport ridership of 6.4 million passengers a day – needs two travel card issuers, namely, EZ-Link and Nets.
In leading public transport hubs London and Hong Kong, there is only one card issuer each for the Oyster and Octopus smart cards, respectively.
As Singapore’s card history goes, EZ-Link was set up as a subsidiary of LTA in 2002 to issue ez-link contactless travel cards for bus and train ride payments. Contactless cards were said to be better as they allow speedier boarding.
The ez-link system – based on the Sony FeliCa technology – ran alongside Singapore’s old magnetic farecard system until the latter was retired later in 2002.
EZ-Link had a monopoly on bus and train fare payments in Singapore until 2009. That year, Nets, which dominated ERP and carpark payments, entered the market for public transportation.
Similarly, EZ-Link entered the payment space where Nets had a stranglehold with its CashCard. The move was said to promote competition and offer more choices for users.
To foster inter-operability, Singapore created its own standard for contactless payment and called it Cepas (Specification for Contactless e-Purse Application).
A mass replacement exercise ensued to switch out the old ez-link cards for new Cepas-compliant ones. All public bus and train fare readers have since also been upgraded to the Cepas standard.
But things were more complicated for Nets because it deals with private carpark operators, many of whom didn’t want to pay for new Cepas-compatible fare readers. For more than two decades, motorists still kept a Nets CashCard on hand, even if they hold a Cepas-compliant Nets FlashPay card.
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Thus, Singapore’s Cepas introduction did nothing to streamline the number of payment cards in people’s wallets.
And there seems to be no letting up on the growing bulge with the recent LTA announcement.
From June 1, the Nets FlashPay card will no longer be accepted at bus and train fare gates. Commuters will have to switch to Nets Prepaid cards, which, like bank cards, are compatible with SimplyGo. Also, existing ez-link cards will need to get a software update at ticketing machines to work with SimplyGo from June 1.
That is not all. Nets Prepaid cards cannot be used for motoring payments. Users need to keep their existing FlashPay card to do so, or get the Nets Motoring Card. Also, ez-link cards updated to work with SimplyGo cannot be used for motoring-related expenses.
In short, the card mess has worsened.
Why SimplyGo or nothing?
The SimplyGo system was launched in 2019, when LTA started to allow commuters to tap Mastercard and Visa contactless credit and debit cards to pay for adult bus and train fares.
Mobile wallets – Apple Pay, Google Pay, Samsung Pay, Fitbit Pay or Garmin Pay – have also since been accepted, allowing commuters to ditch their plastic travel cards.
Singapore proudly became the second city in the world, after London, to offer this convenience.
SimplyGo is an account-based ticketing system. This type of ticketing is carried out by scanning a secure token – be it a bank card, smart card or mobile wallet – at fare gates. Bus and train fares are then processed at the backend, and charged to one’s financial account after the journeys are completed.
Older ez-link and FlashPay cards still in use today are different. They allow transaction data to be stored on the card itself, in what is known as a card-based ticketing system. This is why fares collected and the card’s remaining value can be displayed instantly at fare gates.
Both systems have run in parallel since 2019.
On Jan 9, 2024, LTA announced plans to phase out its card-based ticketing system as its operational lifespan is near expiration.
“Instead of renewing the card-based ticketing system and continuing to run two systems, which is very costly, we have decided to continue only with the SimplyGo system for adult commuters from June 1,” the authority said.
Passengers queueing at a SimplyGo ticket office at Tampines MRT station on Jan 19, 2024. ST PHOTO: LIM YAOHUI
The move has confused people, as concession card holders, including seniors and students, can continue to use their cards after June 1, even if they have not been updated to SimplyGo.
Affected commuters also have not been convinced that the benefits of SimplyGo justify the drastic move. Chiefly, SimplyGo allows users to remotely cancel their misplaced card if it is paired with the SimplyGo app, and retain the monetary value in their account, which was not possible under the card-based ticketing system.
Many people marvel at how London still offers its old-school Oyster travel card, which carries transaction data, despite having introduced account-based ticketing. They wonder why Singapore can’t do the same.
There are still 1.5 million daily fare payments using the card-based ticketing system as at December 2023, compared with 2.6 million daily payments on the SimplyGo system. This is a sizeable number of commuters to consider.
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Legacy machines
It is not known how costly it is to maintain two systems, and what avoidable costs would have been incurred if the two systems were to run in parallel for a longer period. LTA has kept silent after its Jan 9 announcement.
Industry sources named ageing ticketing machines across the island for topping up cards and checking recent transactions as potential costly items to maintain. Many are due for an overhaul.
Add Value Machines are among the oldest installations. Hundreds of these can be found in stations along the North-South Line and East-West Line, Bukit Panjang LRT, bus interchanges, select bus stops and Changi Airport.
Add Value Machines, which accept only Nets payments, are progressively being upgraded to newer Top-Up Kiosks seen in stations along the newest Thomson-East Coast Line. Top-Up Kiosks accept all kinds of card and mobile wallet payments. Some even have cash deposit slots to process cash transactions, making travel more inclusive for unbanked users.
Hundreds more general ticketing machines, installed at all MRT and LRT stations since 2002, have also been earmarked for upgrading.
Fewer machines would be needed if most commuters are on SimplyGo, as compatible ez-link cards and the Nets Prepaid Card can be topped up remotely via the EZ-Link and Nets apps, respectively. The apps are linked to bank accounts. The number of ticketing machines can be kept low, even if LTA continues to expand its rail and bus network.
Indeed, as part of the authority’s push for automation and online self-help, all new ticketing machines will be streamlined into these next-generation machines: SimplyGo Kiosks, Top-Up Kiosks and Assisted Service Kiosks.
Take, for example, Assisted Service Kiosks found in stations along the Thomson-East Coast Line. They connect commuters to centrally located customer service agents via video calls to provide assistance for everything, from topping up travel cards to upgrading concession cards.
Short-term inconvenience?
There is another piece of the transport payment puzzle that needs explaining: ERP.
For one thing, LTA will be retiring ageing physical ERP gantries to make way for a new Global Navigation Satellite System-based ERP 2.0 system. Will this new system support account-based ticketing?
If switching to account-based ticketing is part of the ERP 2.0 plan, it needs to be communicated. This means the inconvenience of having to use separate cards for public transport and ERP toll payments would only be short term.
ERP 2.0 is slated to be rolled out after the installation of the new on-board unit in all Singapore-registered vehicles is completed by the end of 2025, though LTA has said it has no immediate plans to switch to distance-based charging.
In the absence of big-picture transport payment plans, forcing commuters to switch to SimplyGo does not make sense. LTA needs to communicate better.
The June 1 deadline is also puzzling. LTA underestimated commuters’ attachment to getting instant feedback on the funds left in their travel card. It has been an established habit for over two decades, and cannot simply be changed overnight.
Perhaps commuters could be given more time to adjust.
But if the trade-off for saving millions of dollars of avoidable maintenance contracts for ageing systems is some short-term inconvenience, it is not hard to understand LTA’s move.
Again, it would help if LTA had been more detailed and transparent in explaining its decisions.
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