Metro smart cards may soon be used in Delhi buses

The Delhi Metro’s Smart Cards will soon be valid for travel in both the metro trains as well in buses being run in the national capital.

The smart cards would also be integrated with the National Common Mobility Card - More (peacock).

The facility would help commuters use all kinds of transport in the city with one single card. The cards would, however, be renamed as ‘Yatri More Cards’ for this purpose.

To facilitate its implementation, a series of high-level meetings have since taken place between the Urban Development ministry and Delhi government’s transport department.
“It has been decided that the ‘More’ (meaning peacock) cards will be introduced initially in the cluster buses and later in the DTC buses. The art work for designing the ‘More’ cards is already in progress,” said Urban Development Secretary Sudhir Krishna at a press conference here.

Krishna said the facility was  likely to be made operational by May and by the end of the year the common mobility card would be integrated with the National Common Mobility Card.

The secretary said that with the integration of the card in future, it would be enabled to make payments in other transport services like cabs, in a phased manner. More feeder buses to be operational.

Meanwhile, Delhi Metro would be introducing 300 more feeder buses in the capital. Tenders are being floated for the purpose. The transport department has already approved 89 feeder bus routes for the Delhi Metro.

Delhi Metro chief Mangu Singh said the feeder buses would be operated by private operators as DTC (Delhi Transport Corporation) does not have mini - buses in its fleet. “Running feeder buses is economically not very lucrative. That is why the previous operators walked out of the contract. But the contract of next lot of feeder buses would be an improvement from the past, taking interest of the operators into account,” said Mangu Singh.