The card will allow people to travel smoothly in local trains and BEST buses in the first phase
After more than a decade, the government is taking concrete steps towards restarting a sturdier form of integrated ticketing by introducing a travel card valid for various modes of transport.
This will be on the lines of Oyster in London or Octopus in Hong Kong, which are widely used to travel via various modes of transport.
Sources said that for the first time, a special purpose vehicle (SPV) will be formed and a private company appointed for the purpose of manufacturing and selling the travel card, for which a name hasn’t been thought of yet. This card will allow people to travel smoothly in local trains and BEST buses in the first phase. It will later be extended to mobile cab aggregators like Uber and Ola, and black-and-yellow cabs.
“We are working out a holistic plan of Rs 500 crore for this project. Once the SPV is created and private contractor appointed; he would be responsible for manufacturing these cards, the machines and maintenance,” said a senior railway official.
The decision comes after officials from the railways, MRVC, MMRDA and BEST visited London and Dubai last month.
For trains, the authorities are looking at gating all entry/exit points to platforms, like the electronic gates similar to the ones on Metro rail.
The BEST is looking to replacing the smart card with the integrated ones. Officials said they intend to replace the Electronic Ticket Issuing Machines with new ones that can read the single-travel card. Currently the ETIMs issue paper tickets and read smart cards.
ALL-ACCESS PASS
- The card will allow people to travel smoothly in local trains and BEST buses in the first phase
- It will later be extended to app-based cabs like Uber and Ola
- A special purpose vehicle will be formed to manufacture the cards
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