SPANISH TOWN, St Catherine — Cards provided by ePay Jamaica, a subsidiary of Alliance Payment Services Limited, are said to have performed well on the first day of use to access the new train service for students.

Though only seven of the expected 400 students used the service Monday, Cashane Nugent, chief technical officer at Norbrook Transaction Services Limited (ePay), is calling it a win.

“Transactions went through in quick succession — the longest time two to three seconds; we were happy about that. Overall, today was a major success,” he told the media at Monday morning’s roll-out of the trains being operated by the Jamaica Railway Corporation (JRC).

The glitch-free use of the cards was in stark contrast to the chaos experienced by ePay users in December after services were disrupted when principals of Alliance Financial Services Limited (AFSL), Peter Chin and Robert Chin, were slapped with charges relating to breaches of the Bank of Jamaica Act, the Banking Services Act, and the Proceeds of Crime Act.

Their case is still before the courts.

The ePay card is among the stable of offerings that fall under the Alliance umbrella.

It was unclear on Monday how the cards used to access the rail service differ from those that are now unusable.

According to then Minister of Transport and Mining Robert Montague, all 400 students from the six participating schools in St Catherine will have their cards by today, giving them access to a cashless system of transportation.

Cards, which have users’ photos, can either be swiped or their QR codes can be read. All 400 students are on a registry and so can be allowed access to the train even if they forget the card, he said.

“At the end of a fortnight a report is generated to the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Transport; the Ministry of Education pays us…, ([the] Transport [Ministry]), and we in turn pay JRC and the JUTC [Jamaica Urban Transit Company],” said Montague.

— Xavier Allen