MANILA — The ticket vending machines (TVMs) of the Light Rail Transit (LRT) Line 1 will start accepting new coins released by the Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas (BSP) by March next year.
LRT-1 operator Light Rail Manila Corp. (LRMC) said Friday the TVMS have yet to be reconfigured for the new designs and advised commuters to check their five-peso coins thoroughly to avoid inconvenience, especially during the Christmas rush.
Passengers may opt to purchase Single Journey Ticket, Stored Value Card (SVC), or Top-Up SVC through station tellers.
They may also exchange their new coins with old ones through the station teller.
“AF Payments Inc., the concessionaire of Automated Fare Collection System and supplier of the TVMs, has started working on the required calibration of the firmware of its TVMs to process the new five-peso coins. The procedure will be conducted in Germany and will take approximately three months before the updated firmware can be deployed in the TVMs,” the LRMC said in a statement.
The BSP has released its New Generation Currency (NGC) five-peso coin earlier this month featuring Andres Bonifacio in honor of his 154th birth anniversary and 120th death anniversary.
The BSP said the rest of the denominations of the NGC coin series would be released for circulation in January.
All coins in the new series will feature the BSP logo, national heroes and endemic flora. (Aerol John Pateña/PNA)
