MANILA, Aug. 30 (PNA) — The Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 2’s magnetic gates will be completely removed on Monday, National Heroes’ Day, the LRT Authority (LRTA) said in an advisory.
LRTA said that this is to allow the complete transition of beep card ticketing system from the LRT-2’s old ticketing system.
The authority, meanwhile, advised holders of magnetic stored value (SV) cards to either use all its credits or transfer remaining credits to their beep cards until Sept. 15.
On the other hand, LRTA also urged senior citizens and persons with disabilities (PWDs) to apply for special, discounted beep cards at the LRT-2 stations to be granted a 20 percent fare discount.
LRTA spokesperson Hernando Cabrera earlier said that special beep cards are no different from ordinary beep cards except for a special chip embedded in the special beep card.
At present, special beep card application and issuance is contained in the LRT-2 because installation of new gates for southbound LRT-1 is still ongoing.
However, since beep card use is unified, it can also be used at the LRT-1.
“Senior citizens and PWDs can now apply for special beep cards in all LRT-2 stations,” Cabrera said. “It can be used in all LRT-2 and LRT-1 (southbound) stations.”
While beep cards are currently available and usable in LRT-2 stations, the cards are only available and usable in southbound stations of the LRT-1.
Beep cards cannot be used at northbound LRT-1 stations. While the LRT-1 southbound stations currently sell both SV and single journey (SJ) ticket coupons, LRT-1 northbound stations sell only SJ ticket coupons.
An SJ beep card costs PhP20, but it can only be used at station where it was purchased. On the other hand, an SV beep card costs PhP100.
It includes load worth PhP80 and is valid for four years. It can be reloaded for as low as PhP12 to as high as PhP12,000. (PNA)