The Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport (BEST) is changing its age-old practice of passengers boarding from the rear end of the bus. With tap-in/tap-out (tap-on-the-move) ticketing starting this week, the BEST will make boarding the bus mandatory from the front where the driver sits. FPJ were the first to report about the tap in/out system on April 11.
The passengers need to tap out from the rear entry/exit point. This has been decided after the initial testing of this system proved successful wherein their own employees and staff tested the card reader machine installed into the rods next to BEST bus's entry and exit doors.
Senior officials from BEST said that the passenger needs to tap from the driver's end to ensure that the driver sees it as these buses will be made conductor less. The conductors will be placed at bus stops so that people have the option of buying paper tickets as well.
"If someone doesn't tap while exiting from the bus then the maximum amount on that route will get deducted," said a senior BEST official.
As per plans, the BEST buses will be fitted with card readers on which passengers simply need to tap. Initially, it will be running on the ‘Ring Routes’ across Mumbai. There are close to 600 air-conditioned buses – consisting of Mini and Tempo Travellers – that operate on ring routes in the island city and suburbs.
These buses ply on 174-odd routes ferrying passengers from railway stations to residential areas across different locations in Mumbai. The whole idea is to ensure that people travelling in these ring routes need not interact or wait for conductors.
"We are likely to start this facility from this week onwards," said Lokesh Chandra, General Manager, BEST Undertaking.
These buses plying on ring routes either charge a fixed fare of Rs 6 for the AC bus and Rs 5 for the non-AC bus. The buses will have reader machines that can read both NCMC cards and tickets purchased on the Chalo mobile app. In the long run, buses on longer routes too will have this facility whereby if the passenger forgets to tap then the maximum amount on that route will get deducted at the end of the trip.
