QUEUES formed yesterday at vehicle inspection centres intended to help motorists check their CashCards and in-vehicle units (IUs), and to apply to get their Electronic Road Pricing (ERP) administration fees waived.

But most motorists were not aware of the new one-stop service which started yesterday. Some had paid up the fees and were there for technical checks.

Those who made use of the service, like insurance agent David Chua, 52, who was at Vicom (Sin Ming), breezed through the process in 15 minutes. 'I ticked the option on a form for fee waiver, got a new CashCard and I was done.'

Before yesterday, motorists caught passing under ERP gantries without paying - because of some glitch - had to go to three places to iron out their problems.

They would have had to appeal to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) to waive the fees, go to authorised mechanics to verify equipment problems and finally, get to card issuer Network for Electronic Transfers Singapore (Nets) to exchange cards.

The long-drawn-out process had tested the patience of many drivers who insisted that the fault was either with the CashCard, the IU or the gantry itself. The fee is $10 each time the gantry does not detect the card.

Staff manning the centres warned that appeals must be made within the 14-day grace period set by the LTA. Also, there is no guarantee that the fee will be waived. Motorists will have to wait for the LTA to notify them. Also, exchanges of CashCards and IUs are free only if they are still within the warranty or expiry period of five years.

Motorists, however, noted that they were exchanging their cards for the older Blue Butterfly CashCards, said to be responsible for glitches. The new Orange Laser CashCard is said to be less defective, but difficult to find in many stores.

While appreciative of the nine one-stop centres, motorists are still none too happy that the problem has not been licked despite complaints surfacing since early this year.

Architect Tan Shee Tiong, 58, was told by Vicom technicians to buy new CashCards whenever problems cropped up. 'We should not be made to pay the price for glitches. It is inefficient and unfair. LTA and Nets should get it right once and for all.'

Smartcard manufacturers that The Straits Times contacted could only speculate on the source of the problem.

Mr Lin Yih, director of Digital Applied Research and Technology, which develops smartcard software and hardware, said there might be compatibility issues in the 10 years since ERP gantries were set up - parts in IUs, CashCard chips could have been modified.

Mr Chua Thian Yee, chief executive officer of Cassis International, a smartcard services provider, thinks the problem lies in the chip of the old Blue Butterfly cards. 'It is most likely a mechanical fault in the production stage,' he said.

MP Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade GRC), who raised the issue in Parliament on Monday, hopes both the LTA and Nets would treat the resolution of the problem as 'a priority item''.

He noted that while only 0.003 per cent of transactions are faulty, this makes up 250 to 300 cases a month, or 3,000 to 3,600 cases a year. LTA and Nets should aspire towards a zero-defect policy, or at least set themselves a new target to work towards, say, 200 faulty transactions a month.