Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is planning to come up with an Android-based ticketing system that will allow commuters to buy tickets through digital wallets.
With this launch, its 10,000 electronic ticketing machines will be replaced and to begin with, the system is being tried out in 200 buses.
“Our conductors have started using the new devices in 200 buses. We will scale it up after rectifying the glitches,” V Ponnuraj, BMTC’s managing director said.
The basic objective behind this is to provide payment options for commuters, who can now buy a ticket only by paying cash. There are no plans to allow ticket purchases through debit cards because of several technical challenges and RBI guidelines.
“The ticketing machine, Ingenico, can also validate bus passes, including student passes. We have already trained our conductors and are confident of its success,” a senior BMTC official said.
Talking about the present, the electronic ticketing machines currently in use were provided by Trimax IT Infrastructure Services in 2014 when the BMTC adopted technology under the Intelligent Transport System (ITS) project. Currently, BMTC’s daily cash transaction from ticket fare stands at Rs 70 lakh, while only about Rs 1,000 comes from digital transactions every day.