VIJAYAWADA: Now, passengers commuting by the 436 city services operated by APSRTC can book their tickets from anywhere using a mobile application. As part of project encouraging technology-enabled public transport services for the passengers, the RTC vice-chairman and managing director M Pratap, along with Chalo chief technology officer (CTO) Vinayak Bhavnani have formally launched the free mobile App ‘Chalo’ that provides live tracking of buses, at a programme held here on Wednesday.
Speaking on the occasion, Pratap said the corporation was ready to adopt the advanced technologies for improving the public transportation and called upon the start-up companies to come up with various projects.
Almost a year ago, Zophop Technologies Private Limited, a pioneer in providing technology-driven transport solutions in 23 cities and the company that tracked nearly 10,000 buses across the country, approached APSRTC to make public transportation an hassle- free option for the passengers.Since then, around 20 representatives from the company worked for installation of GPS technology and trained the bus conductors of six depots in the Vijayawada region to make them well versed with the procedure, he said.Explaining about the functioning of the new facility, Pratap said that passengers could download the Chalo App for free from the Play Store.
The use of the App would help commuters eliminate the need to wait for the bus conductor to dispense tickets and to carry small change.
Besides that, M Pratap also launched the Chalo Travel Card, a pre-paid smart card to buy bus tickets on the go. The card was offered free with a first recharge of `100 and subsequent recharges could be of any amount in multiples of `10 up to `3,000 at a time, he said. In this regard, each bus was equipped with a tap-to-pay machine for ticket purchase and incorporated the latest security to prevent fraud and duplication, he said.
‘’Tickets can be purchased from the conductors and bus stations by entering their start location and destination while payments can be made via credit or debit card, net banking, mobile wallet or UPI system. An attractive bonus of five per cent is being offered on every recharge, so commuters can travel with both convenience and savings. The card can also be used to buy one-day ‘travel as you like’ bus pass as well,’’ Pratap said. He went on to add that buoyed by the response, the facility would be replicated in Visakhapatnam and other major cities in the future.