Mumbai : Despite the failure of two prototypes of the cash/coin operated ticketing machines which were put up at Churchgate station, Western Railway (WR) tries another shot at it and will be putting up another 100 such machines in the next three months. However, now the ticket vending machines will not be restricted to issuing suburban tickets but will also cater to long distance commuters.
The new cash/coin ticket vending machines are a part of the 700 machines which will be put across pan India. Of these 700 machines, a set of 100 machines will be put across stations on WR while another 48 will be put on Central Railway.
A senior railway official said, “We are now looking at targeting those commuters who are not so frequent travellers. Those who travel on shorter routes beyond the suburban section can use the ticketing cash/coin ticket vending machines.”
There are two prototypes which were put up in CST and Churchgate stations. There had several glitches like the machines could not distinguish between fake currency and the real one. Also, these machines in which cash was put in could not signal when it was full or overload with cash. Taken care of these glitches the new machines, each worth Rs 8 lakh, will have sensors to give a signal when it will be full.
“These cash/coin operated machines will help in reducing the queues at ticketing counters and improve ticketing system on the suburban system,” added the official.
