Move follows many complaints of ticket operators fleecing the commuters.
In a bid to increase the use of technology and reduce human intervention in services of the Delhi Metro, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has inducted newer technologies in all the new lines that have been opened in the last one year, along with upgradation of the existing stations.
The Delhi Metro has done away with human interference in the ticketing section in almost all the newly built stations and discontinued ticketing counters at most of the existing stations. Instead, the DMRC has installed automatic Ticket Vending Machines (TVMs) for issuing tickets along with the facility to recharge existing Metro cards.
The DMRC has installed some 500 TVMs in over 120 operational stations of the Delhi Metro. These machines are capable of vending tokens at a faster rate than the time taken to disburse a single token through human interference. The machine can be accessed in both Hindi and English for the convenience of all its passengers.
According to the DMRC, the decision to do away with human intervention in ticketing was meant to check and reduce corrupt practices and complaints that the DRMC had received against ticket operators.
A senior DMRC official told this correspondent, “We had been getting a number of complaints where ticket operators were reportedly cheating consumers of issuing over value tickets and sometimes not returning change to consumers. Customers have also complained about misbehaviours. This is when we decided to reduce human intervention and take the help of machines.”
These employees were contractual employees who had been removed in a phased manner.
DMRC officials have, however, said that customers who are not comfortable with the use of TVMs would have the opportunity to use the customer service facility where human presence would be there.
In a first, the DMRC has also introduced the facility to vend Metro cards from the newly inducted TVMs in at least four newly operational Metro stations—Janakpuri West, Botanical Garden, IGI Terminal 1 and Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus. Debit and credit cards can also now be used for buying tickets or recharging Metro cards through TVMs in the newly introduced machines.
Apart from these, the DMRC has also introduced driverless trains which have been introduced for operations in the Magenta line that was thrown open to the public last month. However, these trains are presently being run with a driver, which would be done away later.
A DMRC spokesperson said, “We are constantly in the process of upgrading our technologies and the Delhi Metro has been removing human intervention wherever possible for better customer service and to remove any kind of foul play. We are looking at improving the overall quality of customer experience in the Delhi Metro.”