Delhi: Metro and DTC buses will soon have common smartcard for travelling

The Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) on 20 August successfully conducted its first ever transaction using a Delhi metro smartcard in an electronic ticketing machine (ETM) installed in a city bus. This operation will help commuters use metro smartcards to travel cashless in city buses.

Hindustan Times quoted RS Minhas, DTC spokesperson as saying, "It is likely that in next two months, users of public transport in Delhi will be able to use a common mobility card in buses as well as the Metro."

According to a report, 70% of the DTC fleet already has ETMs installed and the rest should have it by mid-October, when the integrated travel scheme is likely to be launched.

Times of India quoted Minhas as saying, "The project is a result of the integration of the software being used in the Metro and the ETM's of DTC as well as sharing the security keys of both the software."

Once the operation gets a green signal in October, 4,000 DTC and 1,100 orange cluster buses will be covered under the scheme and the transport department will start working towards a common use of the card.

"The idea is to have a prepaid service where people using any public transport will not have to use cash and can pay through one card," Hindustan Times quoted a government official as saying.

Conceptualised during the 2010 Commonwealth Games, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) launched the common mobility card for Metro trains and certain DMRC-run feeder buses in 2012. A year before that, 'MORE Delhi', a common mobility card, was launched but the project didn't take off.