The State of Fare Collection in the Philipines in 2025

The light rail system is a bit like a “tram on stilts”. It is similar to the “S-Bahn” in Berlin or the BTS Skytrain in Bangkok. There are currently three such train lines operating in Manila. As far as I know, there is no other city in the Philippines that has anything similar.

Two lines (LRT-2 and MRT-3) are operated by the government and one (LRT-1) is operated under a public private partnership agreement.

There have been plans for additional lines and extensions of existing lines. LRT-1 and LRT-2 have successfully extended their lines by a few stations with more stations planned. MRT-7 is probably the only new line that has a chance to become reality within the next few years.

Since 2015, there is an interoperable, automated fare collection system in place, which is based on NFC technology. Passengers can either buy reloadable cards (beep™) cards or single journey cards. All cards need to be tapped at automated gates to get in and out of the platforms. The single journey tickets are returned at the turnstile when exiting the platform.

NXP delivers the chips for all cards. The overall system is based on the Singapore implementation from MSI.

AF Payments has the concession for operating the AFCS system and enjoyed a five-year exclusivity for issuing the cards under a public private partnership agreement for this system since 2015. The concession for the operation of the system was granted for ten years until the end of 2025.

In 2025, GCash in cooperation with Kentkard (1) and with the support of the Department of Transport, implemented account based ticketing on the MRT-3 line for wireless general purpose cards under the Visa and Mastercard brands as well as for the GCash e-wallet (2).

Jeepneys are the Filipino version of mini buses. Developed originally from “surplus” army vehicles, they were later purpose-built, but retained their iconic appearance. Most Jeepneys are old and are driven by equally old diesel engines that do not meet any environmental standard. Black smoke belching Jeepneys is a common sight.

Passengers have to enter from the back of the vehicle and sit on benches along the length of the vehicle facing each other.

Either the driver collects the fare or a helper who sits in the front passenger seat will do it. It is up to the driver or their helper to keep track of passengers who have paid or have not paid and how much they have paid. This is not an exact science, but most drivers have become very adept at doing it.

The government publishes fare tables. Each fare has a fixed minimum fare and a distance-based component. The reality is that passengers will pay whatever they have always paid and drivers charge whatever is customary. In my experience, the resulting fare rarely follows the mandated fare table. It is usually higher. Since passengers board and alight wherever it is convenient, the fare table based on the distance between stops does not work well anyway.

The government assigns routes to each Jeepney and their operator. I have my doubts whether anybody checks that all Jeepneys follow these routes. The system relies on drivers and operators watching each other.

In theory, there are also fixed stops on each route. In practice, the driver will stop anywhere passengers want to board or exit the vehicle.

For at least ten years, the government tried to force an upgrade of the current fleet of Jeepneys to "modern Jeepneys". Modern Jeepneys are supposed to feature forward-facing seats, curbside entry, aircondition, and automated fare collection, among other things.

While the introduction of new vehicles met with some limited success, the introduction of fare collection has been a complete failure. Even after four years out of the business, I still have emotional scares from the experience.

PUVs are vans that operate between one stop inside a business or industrial area and a small number of end points in the “suburbs”. A PUV can carry probably 10 passengers or so.

There are usually only one or two possible fare amounts. Fares are collected by “barkers” along the queues that form in the PUV terminal areas, especially at the beginning and end of the business day. There are no tickets or further checks when passengers board the vehicle. As soon as the vehicle is full, the “barker” will hand over the collected fare to the driver (minus a fee).

A tricycle is a motorbike with a sidecar. The sidecar is big enough for a local family of six or one foreigner. The driver will collect the fare, which is determined by custom rather than government regulations. Most fare transactions are cash transactions, but some drivers will accept an e-wallet money transfer to their personal account (i.e. no fees). I doubt that there are any drivers that accept general purpose payment cards or special purpose AFCS cards.

City buses only operated in larger cities, predominantly in Manila. The operators use normal coach buses rather than the special city buses we know from other countries.

A conductor on the bus will collect money from passengers. At busy bus terminals, conductors may sell tickets outside the bus. En route, the conductor will just take money from customers on the bus.

The fare collection system on city buses is very much the same as the system used on Jeepneys.

Most of the long haul public land transport is done by coach buses. Bus routes start and terminate at terminals in the major cities and villages. In between terminals, buses will stop wherever a passenger wants to alight. Passengers also tend to wait in places such as petrol stations or expressway entries, and if the bus is not already full, they will stop and let passengers board.

The respective bus operator will sell tickets at the bus terminals which are checked by the conductor on the bus. Passengers who board along the way will buy a ticket from the conductor. The conductor usually hands out tickets that have a serial number on it. Holes punched in the ticket indicate date, amount and so forth.

On the bus, payment is done by cash. At the terminal, the operator may accept payment cards as well. Online ticketing and payment is rare, but it may be possible to make a reservation online that can be exchanged into a ticket that has to be paid at the station.

Taxis operate in bigger cities under concession from the LTFRB. Most payments are done with cash. Some drivers may accept e-wallets. In Manila, Taxis can be booked using the Grab application. In this case, payment is done via Grab as well.

Grab is the “Uber” of the Philippines. They operate mostly in Manila. Introducing the service in other towns has been met with fierce resistance from taxi drivers and Jeepney operators. Payment is done via the Grab mobile application.

There have been plans for a subway line in Manila. So far it has been a stop-and-go affair with some work done, interrupted by disagreements over ownership, money and so forth.

There is practically nothing left of the train network that existed at the beginning of World War II.

A few years ago, construction of the North South Commuter Train line started. It will connect Clark Airport in the North with Manila and Calamba in the South.

The new line will run more or less along the old tracks of the Manila Railroad company that at one point in the past ran from Dagupan in the North of Luzon and Legazpi in the South on Bihol.