Touch ‘n Go bummer
This week’s been all good. An outing with Tim, Jayzen, and Rainier can never be plain boring as there is always something to think about and talk it out. Oh well, this time Tim sparked out something for me to explore.
The Touch ‘n’ Go (TnG) service
Just yesterday, Chia Yee went on the TnG lane at the Kesas Sunway Toll and the car in front of her could not go through as he was having a card with “baki kurang” (insufficient balance). So what this guy did was… he went out his car gave CY a ringgit and took her TnG and touched it onto the reader there and placed it on the reader for her and zoomed off. (continued below)
Anyway, this CY’s case ain’t the first time. Case #1: One time Helen went through a gate and gave the other friend behind her the TnG at Shah Alam Toll, the other friend could not go through too. Ah, this happened at the flat-rate toll. Case #2:Nicholas took some pitiful guy’s TnG, also due to shortage of his own TnG and left the other guy cluelessly stucked alone at the NKVExpressway. Now he lives by not lending anyone anything anymore… all because of this incident with Nicholas.
Since it’s already the third time I hear ’bout this, before CY could even end her story I asked her “So? You got stucked there?” Right, obviously, when it was CY’s turn to “cliq cliq” there, the reader somehow could not read it. Now, this toll was a flat-rate toll system too, that is, every vehicle passing there pays a standard amount. Basically, that guy was a lucky guy, leaving CY unluckily stucked in between the gate and angry-drivers-who-can’t-wait-to-get-home at the peak hour of 5.30pm. End of Case #3.
The whole good conversation further progressed when CY thinks that there was a time-programmed system, that is, when the card serial number was sensed, the same card cannot be read again in such short period of time. Tim thought it is pointless that the company producing TnG regulates this way since the toll was a flat-rate type. I thought about it, and told him that if a card can be used multiple times continuously in such short time, Rangkaian Segar Sdn Bhd would not make any profit out of the card. I put up a quick-but-not-so-likely senario: Say if I have 100 family members who goes out the same time to the same toll. If RSSB did not put up such regulation as mentioned, then we just need to buy one card, load it up and I can just “cliq cliq” away, so as long the card balance’s sufficient for the 100 family members to go through in a file.
Oh well, after giving him that couple of explanations which unfortunately he deemed “makes no sense at all“, I told myself that I would investigate this so that I do not end up kena owned like anything. After some light readings here and there, I have to say I owe Tim an apology, since I found out that there is a refundable deposit to the card, so he was right afterall that RSSB does not make anything out of the card. Darn! I hate being wrong this way… hmm… I guess RSSB does not make much too IF everyone who owns the card now returns the card suddenly, ay? My say? Absolutely unlikely. With the prepaid feature and wide range of usage from toll centres to family parks, from the LRTs to convenience stores, who would wanna return the card and go through the agony of queueing up at slow traditional lanes under the the evening blazing sun at peak hours or messing up purses just to find some loose change, ay?
For goodness of mankind, all users of Touch ‘n’ Go, pleeeeease remember to reload your balance before getting the sign “baki kurang” blinking right on your face and of course, the next time the person before you comes to you and asks to borrow your TnG card, just tell the person that whatever happened to their card is just too bad and you’ll wait and be nice to remind him/her to reload. You do not want to end up being honked behind, do you?
Touch ‘n Go is an electronic card initially used only at toll gates, similar to China’s Q-Free system and E-Z Pass used in NJersey, USA.