Vodafone Fiji Limited yesterday announced a new e-ticketing promotional offer for e-card holders that will entitle the travelling public to a 5% discount off the normal adult bus fare. The promotion comes into effect from today. Head of m-Commerce and Corporate Affairs at Vodafone, Mr. Shailendra Prasad said “The promotion is open to e-ticketing card holders on buses and bus companies who are part of the Vodafone and Foneology e-ticketing system and have agreed to be part of this promotional offer”. These buses will carry a discounted fare offer stickers to advice passengers of the discounted offer.
Under the new Minimum Standard Requirement (MSR) for e-ticketing gazetted by government, the e-ticketing should operate on a “tap on/tap off” system. Vodafone has finalized its tap on/tap off system requirements and has been pilot testing the new solution with few selected bus operators and customers for some time now. We would now like to expand our pilot testing to include a wider passenger base to do some “load testing” on the system.
The discount offer is extended to all e-ticketing card holders who pay full adult fare bus fare to enjoy a 5% discount off their normal bus fare if they pay their fare through the e-ticketing card. To enjoy the benefit card holders need to tap-on their card at the time of getting on the bus and tap off their card when they getting off at the eventual destination. The system will automatically calculate the normal fare and discount it by 5% to pass the benefit onto the passenger. The discount is not available on fare paid in cash.
More than 500 buses Fiji wide are part of discounted fare offer. In the Northern Division, all bus companies and all the buses will be offering the 5% discount on normal bus fares. The idea of this promotion is also to start educating the public on the new tap on/tap off e-ticketing system requirements before e-ticketing system gets fully implemented. It has also been sometime since the public purchased their e-ticketing cards and some of them hold balance on their cards also. This would be an ideal time for them to enjoy discounted travel on over 500 buses.
“The Vice President of Fiji Bus Operators Association and the major bus operator in the North, Mr Pramod Chand said “the introduction of the E-card services has been significant move towards innovation by the bus industry and we are glad that Vodafone is passing on this discount fare offer to get the public used to the new tap on tap off e-ticketing system. With more than 430,000 Vodafone e-ticketing cards in the hands of the travelling public we are confident that the passengers and our bus operators will reap the benefits of e-ticketing by plugging the revenue leakages and improved revenue collections which help further improve bus services in the country.
There have been some delays with this implementation of this project but we are happy that Vodafone is taking positive initiatives to get this project back on the track”, said Mr. Chand.
