Transportation means across India are set to get a huge plus today as Prime Minister Narendra Modi is scheduled to launch the ¡°One Nation One Card¡± in Ahmedabad. The card, essentially an amalgamation of all the smart cards used for different public transport services, can be used for paying for any mode of travel across the country.
As per government officials, the new card can be used by the commuters in PoS machines at ticket counters to get a ticket or just like a Metro Rail smart card directly.
Correspondingly, Delhi Metro has also started a test run for automatic fare collection counters (AFCs) which have been designed indigenously. The counters are able to read the new cards for seamless entry and exit of the commuters.
Representative Image (Tata Motors)
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For now, the AFCs are restricted to a few metro stations. As the trial runs concludes, the AFCs will be installed in the existing metro stations as well, gradually replacing the ones currently in operation.
As per the officials, the designing of the AFCs within the country has helped bring down the cost of the counters by a huge margin, considering the mass rollout of the units throughout the metro rail network. Earlier, these were being provided by foreign players which used to charge high royalty on the units.