Commuters availing rides in the North-South Metro are soon to enjoy the convenience of booking tickets through QR codes. The Kolkata Metro Railway is mulling over plans to introduce the advanced system of QR codebased ticket booking in the North-South line by the end of this year.
The advanced technology of ticket booking is already available in the Green Line. The city Metro railway is now working to extend this facility on other corridors after providing QR code scanners and upgrading hardware of existing AFC-PC gates in stations. According to sources, the system is expected to be started in all stations of the NorthSouth corridor together by December.
Notably, like other aspects, including operation, rolling stock and signaling system, the tickets of the Metro also have a long history and have evolved with time. On the first day of Kolkata Metro Railway in 1984, printed card tickets (PCT), on paper were issued manually to commuters. This ticketing system continued in Kolkata Metro from 1984 to 1996, for 12 years.
As the city Metro stepped forward, printed card tickets were replaced by magnetic strip tickets in 1996. This ticketing system was in force from 1996 to 2011 for 15 years. In 2011, in a paradigm shift, automatic fare collection and passenger control (AFC-PC) gates were installed and commissioned in the month of July enabling commuters travel in Metro, using smart cards or smart tokens. In the next step, the city Metro launched an online recharge facility of smart cards on 30 June 2020.