Snag hits automated ticket machines; passengers irked

Charanjit Singh Teja

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Amritsar, June 11

Automated ticket machines at Metro bus stations, being run under the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS), stopped working last evening. The passengers were not allowed to board buses without tickets and thus faced a lot of inconvenience. A large number of passengers, who board the bus from the Inter State Bus Terminal (ISBT), were a harried lot.

The server of the company that provides the service got down and the machine could not function. The technical staff is trying to fix it. We have asked the contractor to resume the service soon. — A BRTS official

POS machines given

The BRTS management provided the staff with a handy point of sale (POS), a payment accepting and ticketing machine at ISBT. The processing of POS machines is slow which led to long queues outside the ticket counter.

Naresh Kumar, who was supposed to board the Metro bus from ISBT around 8 am, failed to get a ticket and said passengers were hit the most due to the snag. “The automated ticket machines are good for the convenience of the staff but in case these get dysfunctional, there should be some manual option for issuing tickets. Without a ticket, the passengers were not allowed to board the buses or even enter the station. The authorities should provide some alternative mode of issuing tickets.”

Later, the BRTS management provided the staff with a handy point of sale (POS), a payment accepting and ticketing machine at ISBT. The processing of the POS machines is comparatively slow which led to long queues outside the ticket counter. The passengers standing in queues criticised the government for poor service.

Mandeep Kaur, a staff nurse at a hospital near Putaligarh, said: “I board a bus at 8.40 am everyday from the ISBT and start my shift at 9 am. Today, due to a long queue of passengers outside the ticket window, I reached 20 minutes late. The BRTS service loses its reliability with such errors.”

When contacted, a BRTS official said: “The server of the company that provides service got down and the machine could not function. The technical staff is trying to fix it. We have asked the contractor to resume the service soon. Meanwhile, the POS machines are provided to the staff.” The officials claimed that inconvenience was caused only in the peak hours otherwise POS machines were sufficient to issue tickets.