Singapore govt U-turns to allow Ez-link card for public transport payments beyond June 1; move to cost S$40m

SINGAPORE, Jan 22 — The planned full adoption of SimplyGo for adult public transport fares will be postponed from the original June 1 date as the authorities try to iron out concerns raised by commuters, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said today.

Separately, Transport Minister Chee Hong Tat said the Government will spend S$40 million (RM140.8 million) to extend the use of Ez-link cards and Nets FlashPay cards for adult commuters, and not to “sunset” the system in 2024 as originally planned.

The postponement comes less than two weeks after LTA announced that Nets FlashPay and Ez-link non-concession adult cards — known as card-based ticketing cards — that have not been upgraded to SimplyGo will not be accepted for public transport payments from June 1.

No timeframe was given for how long the postponement would last.

TODAY understands that the additional S$40 million will be spent on upgrading ageing hardware and maintaining the current transport payment system option.

Commuters who had bought or converted their old Ez-link cards to SimplyGo cards in the past two weeks can also exchange it for their original card, free of charge, said LTA.

In a Facebook post on Monday, Mr Chee said one concern raised by commuters about SimplyGo is that they would no longer be able to see their stored-value card balance and fare deduction at MRT fare gates and bus card-readers.

Another concern was the delays that commuters faced when they tried to upgrade their current EZ-link cards to SimplyGo compatible cards over the past two weeks.

“I apologise on behalf of MOT and LTA for the delays commuters experienced when they tried to convert their existing Ez-link cards,” said Mr Chee in his post. “This could have been avoided with better preparation.”

He added that LTA has worked to address this issue, and has updated the SimplyGo app and sped up the card conversion process.

In its statement, LTA said that adult commuters who have bought SimplyGo Ez-link cards or converted their EZ-link cards to SimplyGo since Jan 9 can exchange their cards for the old-style cards free of charge, if they wish to do so.

Concession cardholders who obtained a SimplyGo-compatible card or converted their cards to SimplyGo on or before Monday will also have the option to exchange their card to their original concession card free of charge, if they do not wish to keep using their SimplyGo cards, said LTA.

“We seek commuters’ understanding that we require some time to prepare our operations for the card exchange, to minimise inconvenience to commuters,” said LTA.

It added that more details will be available by the end of February.

Move toward full adoption of SimplyGo had drawn criticism

LTA said on Jan 9 that Nets FlashPay and Ez-link non-concession adult cards that have not been upgraded to SimplyGo would not be accepted for public transport payments from June 1.

They had said that this was part of its transition to SimplyGo, a system that had been increasingly adopted by commuters.

LTA said that commuters may still use these two types of stored-value cards for motoring-related payments such as at Electronic Road Pricing gantries and parking charges.

However, the announcement drew strong online criticism. Some confused public transport users had wanted to know more about SimplyGo, while others are wondering what they need to do to continue paying by card.

Some also noted that SimplyGo payments do not show commuters their stored-value card balance and fare deduction at MRT fare gates and card-readers on buses.

LTA had said that the lack of fare display is due to SimplyGo transactions being processed on the backend, similar to credit and debit card transactions.

SimplyGo was introduced in 2019 by LTA to offer a range of digital ticketing and e-payment options for transit. The system allows cardholders to view fare history and top-up card balance on-the-go via a mobile application.

SimplyGo has also enabled commuters to use contactless bank cards for public transport since its roll-out.

Until the latest move, the older Ez-link adult cards not upgraded to SimplyGo and Nets FlashPay cards have operated in tandem with the SimplyGo system.