SINGAPORE, July 26 — A post by an online user about Transitlink fare cards that have been phased out more than 20 years ago has sparked a collective stroll down memory lane on a discussion thread of Reddit. The post, put up on the online forum on Tuesday (July 23), had people reminiscing about the days when commuters used the cards to board buses and MRT trains in Singapore. Some of the cards shown on the post was said to be from the mother of Reddit user “ConsoleLogin”.
The seven cards featured scenes of underwater life, a beach, flowers and even one that had a monochromatic illustration of an MRT train and buses. The Transitlink fare card was introduced in 1991 to replace stored-value tickets that had two magnetic strips behind the card. It allowed commuters to pay for transport on buses as well as on trains.
The magnetic card, which can be bent slightly and can store cash value, was inserted into a slot at the MRT fare gates. On buses, there was a fare validator machine where passengers had to slot the card into the machine, choose a fare from several buttons and collect a printed ticket issued by the machine. In 2002, these magnetic fare cards were phased out and replaced by contactless Ez-link cards, which offered a more convenient and faster way to pay for public transport by simply tapping the card on a reader and the fares were automatically calculated and deducted.
Bus passengers thus need not have to calculate fares themselves by pressing buttons on the valida.