BMTC pilots digital wallets payment in 200 buses for ticket buying

Bangaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is piloting digital wallets services for ticket buying in 200 buses.

For the start, the city corporate body has given an Android-based device to conductors of the buses. Only after resolving all issues, it plans to implement it across the city.

This will allow commuters to buy tickets through digital wallets. However, debit cards payment option has been kept aside to avoid any additional technical glitches.

BMTC will accept payments using QR code from passengers. The city corporation believes the ticketing machines are outdated as they neither read QR codes nor validate passes.

At present, the city buses use 10,000 electronic ticketing machines.

"We are confident of its success,” ET report quoted a BMTC official as saying. A detail response to Entrackr query on the project is awaited.

In the past few months, the BMTC came up with multiple options for people to buy tickets using digital cash. Both the processes did not live up to the expectation giving way to new payment option. Citizens of the city too complaint about its poor implementation and tech glitches.

Earlier, BMTC along with city-based startup Series-5 Labs Private Ltd launched digital pass facility ‘BMTC Namma Pass’. In partnership with Amazon Pay and Paytm, it also offered cash back for a limited period to consumers. It is also planning to come up with a monthly digital pass for commuters.

BMTC does daily transactions of around Rs 70 lakh in cash. The digital transaction is minuscule, not even one per cent, in comparison to cash transactions in the city buses. The move is aimed at improving digital payment awareness among city-dwellers.

According to a report titled 'Cashless Cities: Realizing the Benefits of Digital Payments', Bangluru could realize $1.3 billion annual net benefits through the adoption of digital payment.