Junior transport minister Wilma Mansveld plans to toughen up the rules which apply to the public transport smart card, she told parliament in a written briefing on Tuesday.

Mansveld wants to make the smart card more user friendly and to ensure that differences in prices between transport companies are transparent, the Telegraaf reports. This would entail a change in the current law.

There have been complaints since the smart card’s introduction that changing from one transport company to another during a journey costs extra money, although the current system does not make this clear.

The minister also wants to see if the consumer watchdog ACM can supervise the transport smart card. At the moment, the ACM can only issue advice if there are problems with the system.

The producer of the card, Trans Link Systems, should become a cooperative, the minister says. This would make it easier for transport companies to work together to introduce innovations to the payment system.