Mobility card boost for Delhi’s dying bus service
EASE OF TRAVEL Ticketing process to remain same, Delhi to become the first city in India to introduce an epurse travel system
NEWDELHI: Commuters travelling between Mori Gate and Mayur Vihar Phase III, Jahangirpuri and Anand Vihar, Mukherjee Nagar and Inderpuri will be among the first to get to use their Metro smart cards for paying for a bus ride in the city.
After being planned for over three years, chief minister Arvind Kejriwal is going to launch the common mobility card service on Monday. The facility that will be available in 200 Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and 50 cluster buses will enable a commuter to swipe his/her metro card in a bus to pay for the ride.
DTC officials said that the ticketing process will remain the same for passengers. “The bus conductor will have to press the number 7 on the electronic ticketing machine to activate the smart card reader. Then, he will have to tap the Metro smart card on the device and the fare would be deducted automatically,” the official said.
A paper ticket showing the serial number of the smart card and the balance in the card will be given to the passenger.
An MOU has already been signed between the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation and the Delhi Transport Corporation and another tripartite agreement has been signed between DMRC, Delhi Integrated Multi-modal Transit System Ltd (DIMTS) and the transport
From Monday, Metro smart cards can be used in buses too
200 DTC and 50 cluster/orange buses will have the service in first phase
Remaining buses to be covered by March 31
Metro feeder buses Cycle sharing systems
department. The buses that will be used for the first phase will be those operating from the Rajghat, Rohini I and Banda Bahadur Marg Depot I.
FIRST IN INDIA
Once it is launched, Delhi will be the first city in India to introduce an e-purse travel system that would perform transactions as low as ₹5.
Transport minister Kailash Gahlot said that the government has set a target of March 31 to introduce the common mobility card service in all its 5,421 buses .
“This is being done just at an incremental cost. Both DTC and cluster buses already had ETMS. We had to procure Secure Access Modules (SAMS) chips to turn the same devices into Metro card readers,” Gahlot said.
The SAM chips are being imported from South Korea and it is costing the government Rs 2,000 per bus.
MORE TAKERS FOR BUSES
Calling it a milestone in urban mobility, the minister hoped that the common mobility cards would increase ridership of Delhi’s buses.
“There are 13 lakh active Metro smart card users in Delhi. We hope that a good number of them would also now take buses for their daily commute. The new system will save a lot of time for passengers,” he said.
The ridership of DTC buses have come down to 30 lakh from over 45 lakh in just a span of three years. Officials said that once the service is launched people will get to buy and recharge their smart cards at DTC’S offices.
FUTURE PLANS
In the later stages, the government plans to expand the service to Metro feeder buses as well. “Once this is successful, we will extend it to Metro feeder buses and for cycle sharing services,” a transport official said.
The contactless smart card system is already popular in cities around the world. The most popular among them are Hong Kong’s Octopus card, London’s Oyster card and Japan’s Suica card which not only serve buses and the Metro but are also acceptable payment modes in retail shops.
THE GOVERNMENT HAS SET MARCH 31 AS THE DEADLINE TO INTRODUCE COMMON MOBILITY CARD SERVICE IN ALL ITS 5,421 BUSES