496 TVMs at Metro stations to ensure smooth operation

In a bid to minimise the chance of human error during the transaction process and to support the cashless mode, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) installed 496 Ticket Vending Machines at 84 metro stations to ensure the fast and manual interface free transaction.

But most of the technology challenged commuters faced hassle while operating these token vending machines.

But, "DMRC ensures that no commuter faces any problem in its premises and therefore customer care centers are always available at all stations," said an official at DMRC.

Moreover, a source at DMRC said, "Delhi Metro induced a plan to replace the token counters with token vending machines in upcoming projects of metro."

He also added that more TVM machines will be established instead of token counters in Phase III .

At present, 164 Metro stations are functional at the entire metro network in Delhi-NCR.

"After the demonetisation, DMRC authoritiy has taken the massive step to install these vending machines. Nearly, 295 vending machines were installed after the November 2016," official said.

At present nearly, "50 per cent token counters have been replaced with the TVM and approximately 500 TVM have been proposed to install in next year," he added.

Earlier, these machines had the facility of buying tokens by paying only cash. They had to pay cash in order to recharge smart cards, but now these machines are being updated in a phased manner. Therefore, facility of rent payment facility is being developed from these machines with debit and credit card. For Phase III's subway lines, 500 new TVs will be available by next year. All of them will have cashless payment facility.

"For better convenience of the commuters, two TVMs are installed against every TOM counters and thereby 200% more options are available to the commuters," said official at DMRC. On an average, around 28 lakh passenger travels daily through Metro. Out of this, 70 per cent passengers use smart cards to pay rent.

There are many big stations, including Rajiv Chowk, New Delhi, Chandni Chowk, Kashmiri Gate, where the number of passengers taking tokens is relatively high. Counter is not being closed at those stations.