CHENNAI: By mid-2022, people walking into a metro station could simply tap their debit or credit cards to board a train. Chennai Metro Rail Limited (CMRL) will soon launch account based ticketing, where commuters can use their own credit or debit cards on the automatic fare collection (AFC) gates on the concourse level. The ticket fare will get deducted from the card.
In an account based ticketing, an official said, commuters must tap their debit or credit card on the reader at the AFC gate for it to open. At the end of the journey, they must tap again to exit the station. The machine installed in the AFC gate calculates the distance travelled by the passenger and the fare is deducted.
Commuters will, however, not get a paper ticket. “It will be a bank transaction working through internet,” an official said.
CMRL officials said they are in talks with payment processing companies. “We may launch account based ticketing in three to five months,” the official said.
CMRL has already started installing readers compatible with the national common mobility card, which is expected to be launched across all metro stations in February.
“We want to shift from closed-loop cards to open-loop cards and also gradually phase out tokens. So, commuters will have a choice of account based ticketing, NCMC cards and QR-code ticketing,” an official said. Like a debit card, NCMC cards can be used for shopping and other public transport services that have compatible readers.
At present, most of the passengers prefer buying tokens as they do not want their money to be locked in a smartcard. But buying tokens means waiting in queues at the ticket counter or spending time at the ticket vending machines.
