My easy card app has been a real pain, I moved away came back, new card, changed phone number (wish I hadn’t bothered) few other details, re registered for uBike then all went wrong after that. I’ll sort it out one day.
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Agree 100%, for visitors it would be nice to do this and accept credit cards Taipei system is backwards in this way, in some Euro area no cash only card payments.
Copenhagen metro is modern and most part cashless banks cards. Also nice Italy-Japan driverless train carriages.
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It probably should be implemented! I did this in Singapore and it’s really convenient. I’ve done it in Sydney too. I wish Melbourne would implement it too but you can add a card to android phones for free pretty easily.
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Is that really worth all the money and efforts…?
The Taipei MRT already has well-functioning gates - trashing (some or even all of) them just to introduce credit-card support doesn’t make much sense in my opinion.
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I guess people were saying that before introducing easycard too.
I am not sure what was before the EasyCard - but I imagine the EasyCard solved a real problem?
Or did the system work just as flawless and speedy before the introduction of the EasyCard? In that case, I would argue that switching to the EasyCard also wasn’t really necessary.
There u go. That is your opinion, my opinion is to make things as uniformed as possible, and being able to just use your payment card also for transit without the need to bring another card to be kept topped up and conveniently stored on your phone/smartwatch is progress.
Once you try it you don’t want to go back.
Taoyuan Metro President Pu Her-Chang said the smart service would reduce the tedious ticket purchase process and reduce crowdedness, allowing visitors to enjoy an easy journey “forward to the world”.
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Cash.
Remember those machines at the TRA with the million buttons that would take cash and spit out a single use ticket?
The MRT did the exact same thing until the Easycard was introduced in 2001 by the Taipei Smart Card Corporation, now Easycard Corporation.
Video shows this. It was cash, it was single journey tickets. Because of the lack of easy ability to use or purchase the contactless cards in Bangkok and Manila, people continue to primarily use single use tickets with cash. Easycard is 10x better than cash and single journey tickets but I think spending billions to add in credit cards is more of a diminished returns scenario.
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why not just adding an additional payment method? U want to use Easycard? be my guest. U want to use credit/debit card? Please, enjoy your ride. You still want to buy the one-journey tokens at the machine? There you go.
More choice always better than less choice.
If HK and Milan can sustain a POS system on their busses (with London, Rome, Singapore and other cities I am not aware of), don’t think for Taipei would be that difficult given the network coverage basically everywhere in the metropolitan area.
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In Tallinn (EE ) Estonia, trams and buses (city) card is only option most (maybe all) visitors. Public transport is free for residents (EU or not), tourists for most part us credit cards (there are machines at the tram depot at the airport and few other places but not sure they take cash)
Also Japan, starting to change to credit card payments:
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given the TW mentality, seeing JP doing it might give them some ideas…
It is just so convenient
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I’m not doing it.
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Cause I think the billions of TWD can be better spent elsewhere improving service ANYWHERE instead of making me wait 10 minutes for another train on the red line or an absolutely mind numbing THIRTY MINUTES on the Taoyuan MRT so that a select few particularly special subset of foreign dumbasses that are seemingly unable to figure out how to acquire and use a MIFARE card used almost everywhere in the world. Because the return on investment is low. It’s not going to lead to a huge increase of use on the MRT. And for what? To be charged anywhere between 50-300% more than the actual fares of the journey to people who are probably just going to grab a taxi. There are so. many. better uses for this money that provide a better return. The worst part? That money’s not going to regular joes, it’s going into the pockets of foreign and domestic banks to fill the pockets of elites.
You quoted Hong Kong committed $1.3 Billion HK to upgrade this. $5 Billion TW, $165 Million US. This money could go towards vastly improving our buses in underserved areas. Not by accommodating someone who can’t spend five minutes googling how to pay for the MRT on the free Wi-Fi in the airport.
Sure, in a perfect world, more choice is great, but I’d rather that money be spent on meaningfully improving service and getting the most positive impact instead of catering to an extremely small subset of the population with more money than sense.
The more you increase complexity, the more you have to spend to maintain it. That ends up coming from our pockets.
I’m not in favour of increasing complexity with these fancy LCD displays and credit card machines that require Internet, yet do little to actually improve service for the VAST majority of people because we’ll end up subsidising it with higher costs to use the system. Simplicity keeps costs down.
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I agree with you on many things, here not. Fair enough. Things will change though, just TPE is slow.
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I use my credit card easily. It has an easycard attached to it.
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He’s talking about non-easycard credit cards that have the RFID touch capabilities.
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the whole point is not to have strings attached, a normal credit/debit card, even on the phone/smartwatch, not an ad-hoc card only issued in Taiwan.
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Oh I got it
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