The Taiwan Railway Administration (TRA) yesterday activated multiple card-reading ticket gates at the Taipei, Songshan and Nangang train stations, in a first step toward integrating the various electronic cards used across the nation.
TRA Director-General Frank Fan (范植谷) said new ticket gates would be activated at other train stations between Keelung and Hsinchu by the end of the year.
Passengers can now use both the EasyCard and the Taiwan EasyGo Card to board TRA trains.
PHOTO: CNA
The TRA began allowing passengers to board trains using the EasyCard in 2008. It later began accepting the Taiwan EasyGo Card, although this required the installation of separate card readers.
By the end of the year, the new gates would also allow passengers to use freeway electronic toll-collecting cards and the Kaohsiung MRT’s I-Pass, which is issued by the Kaohsiung City Government.
Minister of Transportation and Communications Mao Chi-kuo (毛治國) told an inauguration ceremony that the TRA was the first public transportation system in Taiwan to use multiple-card reading ticket -machines, adding that he hoped passengers would eventually be able to use different electronic cards to use the various public transportation systems nationwide.
Currently, EasyCards are used on the Taipei MRT system, while the Taiwan EasyGo Card, issued by Taiwan Smart Card Corp, is used on public buses in areas between Taoyuan and Changhua. Bus systems in counties south of Chiayi use the Taiwan MoneyCard.
While 8,000 daily passengers had initially boarded trains using electronic cards, that number had risen to 130,000 within two years.
Du Wei (杜微), deputy chief of the TRA’s transportation department, said an average of 240,000 passengers travel between Keelung and Hsinchu every day, about half of whom use electronic cards.
The TRA said the new ticketing gates allowed a maximum of 60 passengers to pass through per minute.
Before the multiple-card reading ticket gates become widely available, Du said passengers using EasyCards could only board trains operating between Keelung and Jhongli (中壢) in Taoyuan County. People using the Taiwan EasyGo Card, meanwhile, can only board trains running between Rueifang (瑞芳) in Taipei County and Hsinchu.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Transportation and Communications has launched a three-year plan to offer subsidies of as much as 49 percent of costs for operators to install multicard reading ticket machines, provided that the installation is completed within three months.
About 6,800 public transit buses in Taipei, Keelung, Taichung, Chang-hua and Nantou are expected to benefit from the policy.
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