Mr Silvester Prakasam | Director - Fare System Division
Land Transport Authority Singapore

Mr Prakasam has degrees in Science (Statistics) and Engineering (Electrical). He was with the Singapore Airlines for 10 years, working in various departments involved in technical support and development work, before joining the Mass Rapid Transit Corporation in 1983. There, he was involved in the building of the first rapid transit system for Singapore. Since 1989, he has been involved in ticketing systems and several initiatives, the first of which was the Integrated Ticketing System which provided a common fare structure for the entire public transport network. In 1994, he spearheaded trials on the Contactless Smart Card and launched the Enhanced Integrated Fare System project for the public transport system in 1998. Mr Prakasam was the Project Director for this project which implemented a common smart card system across the public transport network at a total cost of US$200m in 2002. To date, 10 million cards have been issued. He is now leading a team to replace the current system with a new open system which will merge the payment infrastructure for Public Transport and congestion pricing. For this purpose new standard specification based on microprocessor cards called CEPAS was developed in partnership with leading card suppliers. The system was launched successfully in January 2009.The total current card base of 15 million memory cards will be progressively replaced by Type B microprocessor cards by October 2009. He is also actively involved in various National Committees in the promotion of e-payments and related standards.