Neville Lahiru
The Ministry of Transport and Highways have unveiled a new prepaid card system that aims to offer an easy payment mechanism, essentially enabling cashless for public transport. Accordingly, the card will function as a typical debit card where users would load the card with cash and could be exclusively used for paying public transport fares.
However, the card system is currently being piloted at the Southern Highway bus routes. As of now, passengers can only use this prepaid card at the Makumbura Multimodal Center when heading to Galle via the southern highway. The card itself can be obtained via People’s Bank and as per the Minister of Transport, Highways and Mass Media, existing credit/debit cards (assuming with EMV chips) should work with the same system.
Once any potential issues are ironed out, the Ministry stated that the hope is to expand the system to all bus routes islandwide as well as for trains. Though no exact timeline has been shared as of yet.
This isn’t the first
If the idea of a cashless payment system for sounds familiar, then you’re not alone. Sri Lanka attempted to implement a similar idea before via the Touch Travel Card system back in 2012. At the time, the NFC-enabled prepaid card was a collaborative effort from Dialog Axiata, Orik Payment Solutions, and Netherlands-based NXP Semiconductors. It was initially tested in Colombo with a focus on expanding islandwide.
Despite the initial ambitions, the reception and the follow-up with the project have been lackluster at best. Though, even at the time of writing Dialog still offers the Touch Travel Card to customers. As per its own website, the Touch Travel Card is enabled across the 138, 122, and 177 bus routes along with the Digana, Kandy, and Kadugannawa in the Central Province. However, one might question the practical availability of it all.
Will the prepaid card have better luck this time?
It’s unclear if the project will be carried out to fruition and if the Ministry will make good on its plans. Though to be fair, technology adoption has come a long way since the Touch Travel Card days in 2012. For instance, the “We Are Social” Digital Sri Lanka report indicates that the current internet penetration in the country is a little over 50% with roughly 47.2% of the population (aged 15+) having made/received digital payments during 2021.So the chances of successful adoption of a cashless payment system for public transport are higher than ever.
The world has long moved to interconnected contactless payment systems for public transport. But for Sri Lanka, only time will tell if commuters will finally get to stop worrying about balance rupees on bus fares or if they no longer have to endure waiting in long queues for train tickets. After all, Sri Lanka has a messy history around national-level digital projects.
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