Poor connection, faulty readers hurdles to common mobility card for Delhiites

The common mobility card might have come with promises to change the way Delhi travels but at present users are struggling to overcome barriers such as poor connectivity, defective card readers and untrained ticket distributors.

Although the Delhi Metro travel cards’ technology was tweaked to work on public buses from August this year, it was re-launched with a new look last month as “One”. Hindustan Times took a ride across the city using “One” to assess how user-friendly it is.

At the Mayur Vihar Phase-I metro station on the Blud Line (Noida City Centre-Dwarka sector-21), a ticket distributor said that there has not been any surge in the sale of the new cards since its relaunch.

“This could be because the old metro cards were performing the same function at metro stations and also in buses, there is nothing new that this card is doing, except from its look,” the Metro official said.

He pointed out that many commuters did not know about the multiple modes where the card could be used — an observation, if true, could be a massive loophole in the initiative.

Data maintained by the city’s transport department shows that since the Metro cards were converted to serve on the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) buses, over 9.18 lakh trips were completed using the card. On average, the DTC sells over 10 crore tickets.

“This is not just another card, it will be expanded to other services to incentivise use. This is just the first step,” said Kailash Gahlot, Delhi’s transport minister.

Although travel via the card is smooth on the Metro network, its effectiveness is truly tested on DTC buses.

On a ride on the RL-77 route of the DTC, which connects Manglapuri in Dwarka to the New Delhi Railway Station, commuters were seen using cash to buy tickets. When handed with the new card, the conductor quipped about having to take out his user manual to complete transaction.

After almost five minutes of wait, the conductor had to manually enter the code in the electronic ticketing machine (ETM) to print the ticket.

“There are certain cards that do not read even after swiping the chip over the reader several times, it could be a fault in the card or with these readers. The unique card number has to be manually entered, which is a bit of a hassle,” said Ghanshyam Deshmukh, the conductor.

Deshmukh said that in such situations they request card holders to get tickets using cash, to avoid crowding of passengers for tickets.

“While we try to resolve the technical errors several other passengers line up and get impatient for their tickets,” he said.

Preety, a 21-year-old student of College of Vocational Studies (CVS), said that if these cards provide discounts bus travel then several students like her who have a budget to maintain every month will buy the new cards.

“The Delhi government has been announcing for months now that they will give additional discounts to students and senior citizens. If such travel discounts are introduced along with low fare on card usage, it will gain popularity,” she said.

Mobility experts said that the purpose of such cards should not be restricted to just travel in multiple modes, but its usage should also be incentivised by giving discounts in travel, parking, and in cooperative stores.

“In most countries where common mobility cards are a hit among commuters, these cards provide major incentives for use. They truly serve the ‘one-card many purposes’ role. Here, we will need to create awareness and provide ease of usage to get more passengers to turn cashless,” said Prabhakar Singh, senior researcher from IIT-Delhi.

.