BENGALURU: The ease involved in using the same Travel card on buses as well as Metro trains will become fully operational at all 40 Metro stations of Phase-I by end of 2020. To facilitate the operation of a National Common Mobility Card (NCMC), hi-tech gates have made their debut at Mysore Road and Baiyappanahalli Metro stations.
According to an official release from Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited, the new automatic fare collection (AFC) gates have been installed as a pilot project at the two stations. “The system under NCMC ticketing between these two stations will be available shortly after testing,” the release said.
“The commuter will be able to use the same smart card for travelling in other modes of travel once other operators also implement the support system for NCMC,” it said. The new NCMC cards will be bank-issued and will work seamlessly at any NCMC-compliant terminal on the lines of debit/cards and fare revenue settlement will take place through banks, the release added.
The AFC gates have been supplied by Bharat Electronics Limited and the backend systems are being operated by Centre for Development of Advanced Computing.
In phase-2 of the project, the AFC system will accept National Mobility Cards as well as the existing Metro cards.