MyRapid card exchange vital for passengers to travel seamlessly

I REFER to the letter from Y.S. Chan, “Why can’t we use the old card?” (NST, July 4).

On behalf of my colleagues at Prasarana Malaysia Bhd, please accept our apologies for the experience that your wife and you encountered at the Pasar Seni concession card counter recently.

We value the feedback. To complement the concession card migration centres at the Subang Jaya and Awan Besar light rail transit stations, we opened another concession card migration centre at the Sri Rampai LRT station on June 30.

We hope to reduce the waiting time for senior citizens, the disabled and students with the opening of these three additional centres.

From our record of the past weeks, we have completed the migration of concession cards for senior citizens and people with disabilities within 15 minutes at the Subang Jaya, Awan Besar and Sri Rampai LRT stations.

The waiting time for students averages between one and two hours, depending on the size of the crowd.

Our staff and volunteers at the information counter will inform cardholders the estimated waiting time when they collect their queue numbers.

Cardholders can remain at the waiting area or come back later.

The migration, or exchange of MyRapid cards to the new platform, is necessary to enable cardholders to travel seamlessly between the Rapid KL bus, monorail, BRT, and LRT networks and MRT Sungai Buloh-Kajang Line, whose Phase Two will be opened by the prime minister on July 17.

Phase Two will integrate with the LRT Kelana Jaya Line at Pasar Seni, and the LRT Sri Petaling/Ampang Line at Maluri and Plaza Rakyat.

As the MRT Sungai Buloh–Kajang Line’s ticketing system accepts only tokens and stored value cards under the Touch ’n Go platform, MyRapid cardholders who enter the MRT system via the LRT networks will have a challenge exiting MRT stations.

As such, it is important for MyRapid cardholders to migrate their stored value cards to the new MyRapid Touch ’ n Go cards.

In deciding on the location of the concession card migration centres, we needed to take into account the availability of space.

While KL Sentral, Masjid Jamek and Bandar Tasik Selatan are popular transit points, we do not have adequate space to set up the concession card migration centres there.

To your suggestion that we should have begun the migration earlier, we wish to share that the migration process involves a number of stakeholders and is contingent on the availability and readiness of resources and infrastructure.

We also wish to clarify that MyKad with Touch ’n Go function can be used as a payment mode for LRT and MRT services, as well as other services.

However, MyKad will function only as an ordinary stored value card in which cashless fare will be applied, instead of concession fare for senior citizens, people with disabilities, and students travelling on the Rapid KL public transport services.

Likewise, the new MyRapid Touch ’n Go card could be used at KTM ticketing gates as an ordinary stored value card.

We hope the above clarifies your questions and would be happy to meet you and your wife for further queries.

Again, please accept our apologies for what you and your wife experienced at Pasar Seni.