Common commuter cards to get banks push

Mobility cards can be used across all modes of public transport

In order to reduce the hassles of travelling by different modes of transportation, the Telangana state government is coming out with a common mobility card (CMC) which can be used across public transport such as TSRTC, MMTS, Metro, private car services like Ola and Uber and auto-rickshaws.

The common mobility card (CMC) will be similar to a debit card and the swiping machine will be provided by the bank for free to RTC and other agencies.

Several private and national banks have demonstrated prototypes of the CMC to the Telangana state government. For TSRTC or other transporters that cannot afford the devices, the bank, which will be the executing agency, will provide the device for free.

“The machine is about five inches and will be provided by banks for free. The banks will earn through the transactions done by users. This kind of ticketing deposits money into respective accounts of agencies like Metro, RTC and others," a senior official said.

The customer has to pay `100 to purchase the CMC and then recharge it similar to a Metro card. Existing Metro smart card holders will be realigned to this card. The conventional ticketing system will continue to exist.

With increasing concerns of first and last mile connectivity, it has become important to integrate modes of transport. It may be difficult to bring autorickshaws on board said an official. “Private agencies like Uber and Ola are already tech savvy and can seamlessly integrate. However, with auto-rickshaws it is going to be a little difficult. We will experiment with a few autos before rolling it out across all autos,” said the official.

Bengaluru attempted such an integration with the help of Axis Bank, but it was not the big breakthrough as expected. In Delhi, automatic fare collection through a common card is marred by glitches especially in buses where there are network issues and lack of skilled labour.

When it was pointed out to him that the failure rate of CMC was high, the official said, “We are taking precautions and time to deliberate to ensure that this project is a success. We have seen the other projects and will ensure that ours will be better.”