MANILA, Philippines — Passengers of the Light and Metro Rail Transit (LRT-MRT) will soon use a single ticket to ride the mass transport systems and use the same for electronic banking and shopping.

The Department of Transportation and Communications (DOTC) Monday said it will bid out a design-build-operate-and-maintain contract for the LRT-MRT’s common ticketing facility in the middle of the year.

Secretary Manuel “Mar” Roxas II said the LRT-MRT single ticket is envisioned to be like Hong Kong’s Octopus Card, which serves as a debit card, aside from being a stored-value train ticket.

“The terms of reference (for this project will stipulate that) the project can accommodate electronic banking, which means that it can be used for shopping, cell phone prepaid reloading, among others like a debit card, or ATM (automated teller machine) card,” he said.

Roxas called on the business community to prepare for the bidding of the project, which he said will be a big-ticket one, even if there is no estimated project cost yet.

“Interested firms can partner up with banks for this huge project. Whoever wins the bidding will have at least one-million clients from the passengers of LRT and MRT,” he added.

The riding public has long urged government to implement a common ticketing system for the LRT lines 1 and 2 and the MRT 3.

The different ticketing schemes employed in the three mass transport systems have been blamed for the long lines of passengers buying tickets at the train stations.

The LRT line 1, which runs from Baclaran in Pasay City to Roosevelt in Quezon City, serves at least 500,000 passengers daily while the LRT line 2, which operates from Recto in Manila to Santolan in Pasig City, caters to 350,000 commuters daily.