Mangaluru: The Dakshina Kannada Bus Owners’ Association (DKBOA), which first introduced ‘Chalo’ prepaid cards for City passengers, will introduce electronic ticket issuing machines (ETIM), which will allow passengers to purchase tickets by tapping their prepaid cards. The initiative will become beneficial to daily commuters who can buy tickets by touching their cards on the machine.
Three City buses owned by DKBOA Former President Dilraj Alva have already been equipped with machines on Route 27 between State Bank and Mangaladevi.
Dilraj Alva said that they have also introduced a student card that gives them a 60 per cent discount. This service is available to every student who owns the Chalo card. “Earlier it was manual card for students which involved a lot of procedure. Now we have cut down all of those procedures here, and they may simply show their ID and receive their card. We wanted to do this as part of the Digital India concept, and that is why we have implemented this as it should come right from the childhood itself,” he added.
When asked the motive behind the initiative Dilraj Alva said that, “There have been many problems with conductors issuing change, and passengers have complained that despite paying for their ticket, the conductor does not provide the right change. We wanted to minimise these issues. So, we advocated installing a metro-style ticketing machine so that customers using Chalo cards may simply tap their cards against the machine to collect tickets.”
The front and back ends of the bus will have one machine each and people won’t have to wait for their tickets.
He also mentioned that on a pilot basis, this initiative was carried out for a month. “From the study, what we understood is that people from the age of 18 have supported ETIM. Customers have received a 20 per cent discount as a result of this digital card system,” said Alva.
When asked about how they will assist elderly people he said that we do have an assistant who can guide them. Those who are having trouble can give the card to conductors, who will tap and issue the ticket.
Alva further went on to say that owing to the pandemic, the interaction between conductors and passengers has been minimised. Now, with Chalo cards there’s no need to contact any conductors for availing their tickets.
