Passengers walk out of Nairobi Terminus of the Mombasa-Nairobi Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) in Nairobi, Kenya on July 9, 2021. (Xinhua/Li Yan)
Passengers riding Kenya's standard gauge railway (SGR) trains are required to pay for the service using cashless means only starting today.
NAIROBI, Aug. 1 (Xinhua) -- Passengers using Kenya's standard gauge railway (SGR) trains will from Sunday pay for the service using cashless means only, Kenya Railways said in a notice on Saturday.
A traveler walks to board the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) train in Syokimau, Nairobi, capital of Kenya, May 3, 2021. (Xinhua/Joy Nabukewa)
The Chinese-built railway that has been in operation since 2017 has been using a hybrid payment system that involves cash, mobile money, and plastic money.
"As from August 1, the acceptable payment mode for your Madaraka Express train ticket will be debit/credit card and Mpesa," said the corporation.
Since most of the tickets are bought online, the switch to exclusive cashless payments would not inconvenience travelers.
"The cash payments did not make sense since a majority of travelers book their tickets online and thus pay via mobile money. For me it doesn't change anything," said Beatrice Atieno, a frequent user of the service, adding that for the two years she has used the train to and from the capital Nairobi, she has never used cash.
Some 720,000 travelers used the SGR train in 2020, down from 1.59 million in 2019 due to COVID-19 disruption. ■
