SPENDING S$40M TO RETAIN PAYMENT OPTION
In a Facebook post on Monday, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat acknowledged the concerns of commuters who want to continue seeing their fare deductions and card balances at fare gates and bus card readers.
“We will spend an additional S$40 million so that commuters can continue to use EZ-Link cards and NETS FlashPay cards if they wish to,” he said.
Some commuters told CNA a few days after the announcement that they encountered hiccups in the upgrading process.
A surge in transaction volumes caused the SimplyGo app and ticketing machines to be less responsive, said LTA at the time.
Last Friday, a free exchange service for those looking to swap their NETS FlashPay cards for the NETS Prepaid Card was “temporarily unavailable” until further notice. The planned exchange at SimplyGo ticket offices was initially scheduled to begin that day and run until Jul 18.
On Saturday, the SimplyGo upgrade feature was also “temporarily unavailable” at some ticketing machines.
“I apologise on behalf of MOT (the Ministry of Transport) and LTA for the delays commuters experienced when they tried to convert their existing EZ-Link cards. This could have been avoided with better preparation,” said Mr Chee.
“LTA has worked to address this issue. It has updated the SimplyGo app and speeded up the card conversion process.”