Taipei bus cards may be faulty

Taipei City Councilor Wang Shih-chien (王世堅) yesterday called for city residents to pay attention to the amount of money deducted by card readers from stored-value bus cards, and also called for the city to conduct both monthly and spot-checks on the machines and to designate a unit to handle refund claims filed by bus passengers.

DPP Councilor Wang made the appeal following his allegations yesterday that the Taipei City Bus Administration (TCBA, 台北市工車處) and the city's Bureau of Transportation (交通局) have teamed up to bilk millions of dollars from customers by installing poor quality card readers on buses and of failing to conduct regular inspections.

"I'm afraid that the amount of money syphoned off may be in the millions of dollars," Wang said.

Showing six bus cards he had collected from colleagues and friends, Wang said the phenomenon is not unusual, and the deducted amount for a one-way trip can go as high as NT$70, or NT$55 more than the standard NT$15 adult fare.

"Although it's a common practice, not many people know about it because most passengers usually don't bother to check their cards or even care that they've been overcharged as the amount is, after all, only NT$70," he said. "Besides, they don't want to get involved with the bureaucracy of sorting it out or face the possible hostility of bus drivers and/or the authorities."

According to Wang's own investigations, out of 462 city residents questioned for a survey administered by his office, only 5.7 percent respondents said they have noticed when too much money is taken off their bus card.

Data collected by Wang also showed that bus companies, both city-run and private ones, do a poor job of sending their card readers for overhauls, with repair rates ranging between 4 percent and 8 percent.

Huang Tsung-chou (黃宗洲), chief of the bureau's second section, said the errors are most likely caused by bad cards rather than poor machines.

"We encourage passengers to report incidents to the bus driver as soon as they happen, or to mail the card back to the company that issued it for a refund," he said.

Since bus companies are required to conduct regular overhauls of their card readers, bus companies face a fine of NT$9,000 per machine should mistakes result from machine problems, Huang said.