AC

Whitefield

ETM

BMTC

BMRCL

Metro

Sai Ratna Chaitanya

BMTC Ekroop Caur

Sounderarajan K, a consultant and a regular user of BMTC’sbuses between Majestic and, is one of the 100 passengers chosen to take part in the pilot study of smart cards in city buses. He feels that the introduction of smart cards will change the way people travel in the city. When asked about his experience, he said, “Earlier, I used to find it difficult to pay exact change while travelling by bus, but now that problem has been solved. Even now, I see conductors and passengers having arguments over exact change, but in my case that will not happen. It is also easy for conductors to issue tickets by just tapping the card on anmachine. What I feel is that once the smart card is introduced for all types of services, including ordinary buses, it will help a large number of people as a majority of people travel by ordinary services.”It can be recalled thatrecently launched the smart card service. Route number 335 E was chosen to begin the trial run, with 100 passengers as beneficiaries. The smart cards will be issued in a phased manner. From July 15 onwards, all passengers travelling on the route can start using smart cards. The project will be extended to the Airport Vayu Vajra services from August 1, and from August 15, all AC services across the city will be covered. In October, all buses will be covered and smart cards can be used as passes from November onwards. BMTC says that the smart card can be used for various services such as bus tickets, daily and monthly passes, as well as shopping. BMTC charges Rs 5 for the card and an annual fee of Rs 25.Balaji Singh, who has been using AC buses for years after shunning his personal vehicle, said, “Though I find it very convenient to use the card, I have several suggestions to make to BMTC. Firstly, they can come up with some incentive scheme on the lines of that offered byto promote the use of smart cards.BMRCL gives a concession for smart cards users on itsservices. I have also noticed that service charge gets deducted on using the card and BMTC should do away with that.”, an architect by profession and a card user, said, “After getting the card, first I tried to use it in two buses. Surprisingly, conductors were not aware of the facility and their electronic ticketing machine too was not calibrated to facilitate use of the card. In the next four attempts in other buses, I managed to use the card and it was a good experience.”BMTC is in regular touch with the card users who are part of the pilot project. MD ofsaid, “We had chosen people through various modes such as social media. and radio announcements. They are giving us feedback on a regular basis. There are some minor issues and we will fix them.”