I was riding the RapidKL T623 route to Kelana Jaya LRT station last week when I noticed a sign about Touch N Go service. From what I read, it seemed that RapidKL was finally going to relaunch Touch N Go service on all of its buses.

Today, this was confirmed that Touch N Go services can be used on all RapidKL buses. Of course, there has been no official announcement. When you board the bus you may not see any sign, so you will have to ask the driver.

No matter the case, it is a great pleasure for me, as a regular public transit user and occasional driver, to be able to use my Touch N Go card on RapidKL buses. It is easy and convenient and I do not worry about having to keep loose change or RM1 notes in my pockets.

I can only wonder why this did not happen earlier. I have been told that this was due to technical reasons. Again, no matter. As long as I can use the service and I do not have to worry about glitches, I and other users will be happy.

I would like to encourage RapidKL and Touch N Go to start offering discounts to regular users. It would be a simple gesture to offer a free bus ride for every 10 rides, or a free train ride for every 20 rides. More discounts for Touch N Go users would encourage more customers to use the service, which would benefit both RapidKL and Touch N Go.

It is quite sad that in some cases, it costs a lot more to use Touch N Go instead of cash. The cost of using Touch N Go at the Sunway carpark is 20 percent higher than using cash, while the cost is 60 percent higher at 1Utama!

Another thing is that Touch N Go service is still not being fully utilised. I am fully looking forward to the day when we will be able to use Touch N Go cards for small expenses, for example, at shops like 7-11 and McDonalds and newstands at LRT stations. Hong Kong residents can use their Octopus cards at hundreds of locations, and even reload their cards at 7-11.

That is something to look forward to.

Thank you RapidKL and Touch N Go for making this happen.