BENGALURU: Even as thousands of Metro commuters are making use of the recently launched Quick Response (QR) ticketing system of the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd and its WhatsApp Chatbot to book tickets, its server crashed on Monday around 4.30 pm, forcing the public to queue up at stations. Top Metro officials confirmed to The New Indian Express that the BMRCL server suffered a technical glitch and the process to set it right was underway.
BMRCL launched its single-journey QR ticketing system on November 1 as a Karnataka Rajyotsava gift to the public and it became an instant hit with at least 10,000 QR tickets booked daily now. It also extended the booking through Paytm and Yatra on December 8.
On Monday afternoon, Karthik Madhavan (name changed) was trying to book a ticket using the Metro app from Baiyappanahalli to Swami Vivekananda Road when this message flashed on the screen: “Something went wrong. Please try again.” Repeated efforts to book tickets went in vain. Many commuters had a similar experience.
A senior Metro official said, “The BMRCL server could not cope with the demand to book QR tickets through different apps and it crashed at 4.30 pm.” Another official said it was a technical issue. “Some technical issue has cropped up and our people are working continuously to set it right,” he said.
Chief Public Relations Officer, BMRCL, BL Yashavanth Chavan said, “The issue was sorted at 8.35 pm.”
A regular Metro commuter said she experienced problems booking Metro tickets digitally earlier too. “I have frequently found it to be an issue to buy tickets by scanning the QR code through GPay and had to pay cash. This is a recurring issue with BMRCL and they need to set it right.”