Commuters on the Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) train system will soon be able to use an electronic card ticketing system to go from Ruifang (瑞芳) to Hsinchu, the railway said yesterday.
Currently, commuters can use Taipei EasyCards to board all classes of trains between Keelung and Jhungli (中壢). Regardless of the train class, each passenger is charged the cheapest commuter train fare and enjoys an additional 10 percent discount when using an EasyCard.
TRA deputy director general Chang Ying-huei (張應輝) said the TRA implemented the measure last year and decided to expand the service because of its effectiveness.
Their evaluations showed that an average of 80,000 passengers use Taipei EasyCards to board TRA trains each day — 20 percent of its passengers nationwide.
Chang said that its one-year contract with the Taipei Rapid Transit Corp (台北捷運公司) expires this month. It has opened a bid for a new contractor, which will close next month. The contractor must pay for the installations of card sensors in each of the stations between Ruifang and Hsinchu. It must complete the installations by the end of this year.
Before the installation of the new card system is complete, commuters can still use Taipei EasyCards to go between Keelung and Jhungli. Aside from the northwest corridor, Chang said it is planning to expand its electronic card service to include all other routes around the nation. It will gradually replace old ticket gates with ones that are able to accept both magnetic tickets and the four different electronic ticketing systems available in the nation.
The EasyCard has the largest user base in the country, with approximately 15 million cards in circulation.
EasyGo is used on public buses in counties between Taoyuan and Changhua. Counties south of Chiayi, meanwhile, use the Taiwan MoneyCard on their buses. The I Pass is used on Kaohsiung’s MRT system.
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