The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) is likely to proceed with the awarding of the PhP 1.72 billion ticketing project for the metro rail transit (MRT) and light rail transit (LRT) systems to the consortium of Ayala Corporation and Metro Pacific Investments, Inc. (AF Consortium). The consortium is expected to deliver the contactless automatic fare collection system in the third quarter of 2015. The system that is patterned after Singapore’s EZ Link Card is aimed at accelerating fare payments, reducing queuing, and allowing passengers to transfer from one train system to another with just one card. Besides the cost of the project, the consortium is also required to pay the government a premium of PhP 1.09 billion over the concession period of 10 years.
