Finally, after several months of planning, Chennai Metro Rail Ltd. has decided to introduce QR code-based ticketing whenever the services resume.
Although the QR code-based ticketing has been in the works for a long time, soon after COVID-19 outbreak, Metro decided to speed up the process to make it a contactless transaction for the passengers. Now, the facility is ready to be rolled out and a passenger has to show this at the automatic fare collection gate and pass through.
Metro had two options for tickets, namely smartcards and tokens and passengers could purchase them either through the counter or from ticket vending machines. But owing to the pandemic, it has been thinking of doing away with the tokens since many staff and passengers will handle them and sanitising tokens would be difficult.
Sources said QR code ticketing will be easy and quick for a passenger to use. The passenger will have to just open the CMRL app and click on the option to generate a QR code ticket and once payment is made through a digital wallet, the code will be created. This will be implemented all through the 45- km network and in each station there will be one AFC gate wherein the gate will accept this QR code-based ticket. “The idea is to facilitate contactless travel for passengers; and of course passengers need not waste time standing in a queue to buy one from the vending machine or the counter,” an official said.
Sources said it was not clear whether these QR codes could be used for parking of vehicles.
