By ABS-CBNnews.com | ABS-CBNnews.com | October 4, 2015

Watch video report here

The Metro Rail Transit-3 (MRT-3) on Saturday started using its new "Beep card" ticketing system at the train stations.

Passengers now line up before vending machines to purchase their Beep cards for single journey, or stored value card worth P100 loaded with P80 plus P20 card fee.

With the new system, passengers just have to tap their Beep cards on the station turnstiles instead of inserting magnetic cards as before.

Although some passengers have encountered difficulties such as confusion in using the machines leading to longer lines, private concessionaire AF Payments, Inc. assured that the new system is all in place and working as they deploy a number of "station guides" to assist and address people's concerns regarding the use of Beep cards.

"You'll see around here we have a lot of what we call station guides. We have a couple of hundred station guides in the stations standing beside the gates helping people to make that tap," said Peter Maher, president and chief executive officer of AF Payments.

"However, even when the guides around, there are thousands of people going through these gates at pretty high speed so there will be a few little mis-taps or few stumbles. But I think people will get used to the system pretty quickly," he added.

AF Payments also advised passengers to purchase their cards early so they can board for their travels faster.

Beep cards are available in all MRT-3 stations and will soon be sold in some stores.