Skip the metro queues with QR-coded tickets on your mobile
Times of India | 12 September 2024
Kolkata: Now you can easily skip the queues at city metro stations. Kolkata Metro on Wednesday introduced QR-code based ticket booking on its North-South or Blue line and the truncated Orange line to implement an integrated QR-coded ticketing system.
East-West Metro or the Green line’s Sector V-Sealdah section already has the facility. On Wednesday, the mobile-based integrated QR-code ticketing system was introduced on the Blue, Orange and Howrah section of the East-West Metro or Green line 2.This will allow passengers to travel through Metro lines that have interfaces. The Blue line, for instance, has interfaces with the East-West Metro’s Howrah section at Esplanade and the New Garia-Ruby or the Orange line at New Garia.
For the last three years, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has been updating the hardware of the existing automated fare collection and passenger control (AFC-PC) gates at the 26 stations of the North-South line or Blue line, the five stations of the Orange line and the four stations of Green line-2. QR-scanners have been installed in the metro corridors.
“Kolkata Metro is the country’s first metro. Yet we lagged in many aspects. Finally, we have been able to introduce the integrated QR-code ticketing system,” Metro Railway’s general manager P Uday Kumar Reddy said after launching the modern ticketing system at Kalighat metro station of the North-South corridor. Reddy said the new system may have teething problems. “We are introducing it on a trial basis, so that we can rectify issues that crop up during usage,” he said. Since the QR-ticket booking is already in place in the Green line, passengers are used to availing the facility by downloading the Metro Ride Kolkata app from Google Play Store.