DTC bus at Anand Vihar in New Delhi. (EXPRESS PHOTO BY PRAVEEN KHANNA)
Delhi took a step towards rolling out contactless ticketing system on public buses Wednesday, with researchers from Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology (IIIT- Delhi) initiating a trial run across 31 cluster buses of one route. Once the project is scaled up, commuters can pay using mobile apps by scanning QR codes pasted behind every seat and receive e-tickets, which will also have the expected time of arrival at their destination. While the project has been on the cards for a while, the government fast-tracked it in the wake of the pandemic, which requires people to socially distance at public places.
“This will ensure social distancing between passengers and conductors. Exchange of cash… under the current arrangement often creates difficulty,” Transport Minister Kailash Gahlot said.
On Wednesday, the project was live-tested on the 473CL route, which stretches between Anand Vihar ISBT and Badarpur and sees a high footfall per day.
IIIT-Delhi associate professor Pravesh Biyani said the team working on the project has developed an API (Application Programming Interface) and a mobile app called ‘Chartr’. API is an interface that allows software to share information over the internet. In case of IIIT-Delhi’s solution, this will mean apps like Paytm, GooglePay can add a feature for bus tickets where they can see the route number, origin, destination, fare etc using the API developed by IIIT, Biyani told The Indian Express.
He said they had approached the Delhi government with the proposal in May: “We will make the interface available to interested companies. Our mobile app can also be used by the Delhi government or they can use their own ‘One Delhi’ app. We will examine glitches and bugs, if any.”