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EasyCard plan steaming ahead

Passengers will be able to board the bullet train and Kaohsiung’s Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) system using Taipei EasyCards by the end of this year, according to a plan by the Ministry of Transportation and Communications.

The ministry plans to eventually integrate all electronic ticketing systems nationwide.

The Taipei Smart Card Corp (TSCC) is in charge of issuing Taipei EasyCards for use on the Taipei MRT system, while the Taiwan EasyGo Card is issued by the Taiwan Smart Card Corp and is used on public buses operating in counties between Taoyuan and Changhua.

Counties south of Chiayi, meanwhile, use the Taiwan MoneyCard for their bus systems. The Kaohsiung City Government issues the IPASS system for its MRT system.

The four cards do not have the same formats and are incompatible with one another.

The Taipei EasyCard has the largest number of users. The TSCC said recently that it had issued more than 13 million EasyCards.

Wang Mu-heng (王穆衡), director of the transportation management division at the Institute of Transportation, said the ministry has held a meeting to set goals to be met by the end of the year.

Wang said the Taiwan Railway Administration started allowing commuters traveling between Keelung and Jhongli (中壢) to use Taipei EasyCards this month, and is striving to extend the scheme to Hsinchu this year.

The Taiwan High Speed Rail Corp is also planning to allow passengers to use EasyCards to travel in unreserved seats.

Wang said the company still needed to settle several technical issues before the proposal could be implemented, such as what to do when a passenger has insufficient funds loaded on their card.

The ministry is also planning talks with the Kaohsiung City Government about installing sensors that recognize EasyCards in its IPASS equipment.

The ministry hopes to enable EasyCard holders to board the Kaohsiung MRT system by the end of this year.

The ministry had been planning to integrate electronic ticketing systems nationwide by introducing a new card format intended to make life easier for different operators.

The TSCC, however, has refused to adopt the new format, saying the new card format had yet to be proven reliable and viable.

Wang said the ministry aimed to convince the operators of the three other card systems to adopt its format.

Eventually there will be just two formats, he said.

“As a transitional measure, the TSCC could start making EasyCards readable in both formats,” he said, “Gradually, when more people experience the convenience, the company may decide to issue cards using the ministry’s format only.”
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