Swiping to buy ticket on bus

Next step toward making Siddipet a totally cashless transaction constituency

Riding easy: Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao being explained the working of card swiping system to pay for bus ticket in a TSRTC bus at Siddipet.

SIDDIPET: Now you can swipe your card to pay for the ticket on the buses operating out of Siddipet Bus Depot of the Telangana State Road Transport Corporation (TSRTC).

TSRTC installed the swiping machines in its buses for the first time with the service launched here on Sunday by Irrigation Minister T. Harish Rao in the presence of TSRTC Chairman Somarapu Satyanarayana. This was a part of the transformation of the constituency as the first cashless transaction constituency in the State.

The RTC buses already use ticket issuing machines (TIM) which prints out a ticket once the boarding and end point of the journey are entered. The RTC has connected the ticket issuing machine to a swiping machine through bluetooth allowing the conductor to swipe the card for collecting payment.

The TSRTC is running 112 services in the depot limits operating a fleet of 116 buses, including 75 owned by the RTC.

The RTC depot got 125 swiping machines which can accept both the swiping cards as well as the new chip based cards.

On the first day the conductors faced the problem of connectivity in Mulugu forest area while at other places the system functioned smoothly.

“We will be getting full information about the functioning of swiping machines in a day or two. However, no major problem faced on the first day and hence we are expecting a smooth functioning,” said Depot Manager G. Suresh adding that they have ordered for some more machines as a precautionary measure.