City commuters, heads up! The Malaysian government is looking to introduce a new system to boost public transport use.
According to the “Land Public Transport Transformation Journey 2010-2015” report, come 2018, a new Integrated Common Payment system (ICPS) will be introduced. Once implemented, commuters can look forward to a single electronic payment system to ride all urban rail and bus services within the Klang Valley and park at nearly 4,000 spots at transit stations.
That’s right, all on just a single card.
Commuters using the ICPS will also save a substantial amount of money on public transport once the ICPS solution has been implemented as special discounts will be given for customised products, suited to each group of commuters. The ICPS will have multiple options for e-payment, including Common Prepaid Cards, Bankcards/Debit Cards, and mobile applications such as Apple Pay and Android Pay.
Fun fact: In December 2015, Vix Technology aka Vix announced via a press release that they’ve been awarded a contract by SPAD to manufacture and supply more than 10,000 Common Reader Module (CRM) devices as part of the ICPS project to unify Greater Kuala Lumpur’s transit networks. For the uninitiated, Vix is a global technology company based in Melbourne, Australia that designs smart ticketing and payment technology solutions. The same company that worked on the Octopus card system for Hong Kong and Singapore’s EZ-Link.
A slew of other initiatives will also be rolled out from 2017 to 2020 under the government’s plans to boost public transport use in Greater Kuala Lumpur including 2 new transport terminals by 2020, Terminal Bersepadu Gombak (TBG) and Terminal Bersepadu Sungai Buloh (TBSB), to integrate bus and rail links, as well as some 30 Park-n-Ride stations across the city at high concentration areas. In 2019, a whopping total of 3,966 new parking spots will ready to complement all the rail lines operating by then.
Currently, there are a couple of ongoing projects to enhance and streamline integration of land public transport within Greater Kuala Lumpur and Klang Valley. These include the light rail transit (LRT) expansion and the construction of mass rapid transit (MRT) lines.
Is the ICPS really necessary when we already have the Touch ‘n Go system in place? What do you guys think? Feel free to sound of in the comments below!
Source: The Star Online, SPAD, Vix Technology / Featured image: Paul Tan.
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