BEST plans e-ticketing; members urge rollback of conductorless buses

The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) Undertaking plans to introduce e-ticketing services. The administration passed a resolution to this effect at the committee meeting on Thursday.

Earlier in January, BEST floated a proposal for digital ticketing, which was approved after the consent of committee members and the BEST management. E-commerce companies - PhonePe, Paypoint and 197 Communications will be given contracts to develop the online payment gateways for the official BEST application, ‘BEST Pravas’. Each gateway will receive a commission of 5 per cent for every ticket it sells.

On the ‘BEST Pravas’ app, commuters can see bus timetables and live-track the location of buses on specific routes. However e-ticketing service is not yet available.

“Our objective is to provide efficient service. Our ridership has increased and its necessary for us to go digital, as we are living in a technically advanced era,” said the BEST general manager Surendrakumar Bagde.

However, BEST committee members have strongly opposed the management’s ‘oneman operation’ policy, in which the undertaking has curbed the operation of conductors inside buses. This comes a day after a 50year-old BEST conductor fell down the staircase of a double-decker bus, while on duty.

“The management has zero knowledge of the circumstances in which conductors function inside the bus. It’s difficult and exhausting for a single conductor to manage an entire double-decker bus,which is jampacked in peak hours,” said BEST committee member and Shiv Sena corporator, Anil Kokil. The undertaking is now running conductorless buses on 41 routes across the city, where 224 buses are in service. On double-deckers, currently, there is only one conductor issuing tickets. Committee members also claimed, not having conductors inside the buses is also unsafe, as at times, miscreants board the buses. “There is a risk of increase in crimes like pickpocketing and molestation during peak hours, as there will be no conductors to keep a watch on miscreants. By reducing the number of conductors, the management is risking the lives of passengers as well,” said Congress corporator and BEST committee member, Bhushan Patil.