Delhi: 250 buses to accept Metro cards from January, more buses will be added

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has worked closely with the DTC on the project. (Express Photo)

Starting January, 250 buses in the city — 200 under the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and 50 under the cluster bus scheme — will accept the Delhi Metro’s smart card for ticketing. First discussed in 2010 and pending for several years, the common mobility card project will allow commuters to switch from bus to Metro seamlessly.

According to sources, all buses under the DTC and the cluster service have e-ticketing machines installed already. A secure access module (SAM) chip has to be installed in these machines for the Metro card to work in buses as well, sources said.

The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has worked closely with the DTC on the project. “The common mobility card project should take off in January next year in 250 buses to begin with. More buses will be added to the scheme slowly,” transport secretary Varsha Joshi said.

A norm in several cities across the world — where the same card can be used to travel in buses, trams and Metros — the project has failed to take off in India despite several attempts.

In 2012, DMRC had announced that it would introduce a common card for the Metro and Metro feeder buses. The plan was to introduce it in 10 feeder buses as a pilot project before extending it to the entire fleet, and finally integrating it with DTC and cluster buses. According to sources, the plan was shelved.

Last November, the Union Urban Development Ministry had announced that it would take initiatives to integrate public transport systems in metropolitan cities across the country for seamless travel. The common mobility card is the norm in London (Oyster Card), Amsterdam (OV ChipKaart), Singapore’s smart card, and several German cities (BahnCard).

According to officials at the transport department, once the SAM chips have been installed in e-ticketing machines, one can just use the Metro card to buy a bus ticket. The amount will initially be transferred to the DMRC, from where it will be transferred to the DTC and DIMTS (for cluster buses). “These modalities have been worked out with DMRC,” a DTC official said.