The common mobility card scheme for Delhi Metro trains, Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster buses will be delayed for some time as the Secured Access Module (SAM) chips to be fitted with electronic ticketing machines in buses have not been procured, a senior Delhi Government official said on Sunday.
“The chip is proprietary. We tried to get it through tender of authorised resellers of a South Korean company but may be due to small quantity they did not show interest. We will go for new tender again,” an official said.
As per the plan, the smart cards used for commuting in metro trains are to be used as common mobility cards for travelling in DTC and cluster scheme buses.
The common mobility will be facilitated through use of a SAM Access Module (SAM) chip to be fitted with electronic ticketing machines (ETMs) given to the bus conductors.
The process of procuring 2,000 SAM chips to be fitted with ETMs to enable real time fare transactions was rolled out recently by inviting interested vendors for its supply.
A SAM is a smartcard installed permanently in the equipment interacting with the cards or tickets used to enhance the security and cryptography performance in devices to perform secure transactions in paying terminals. Meanwhile, the trial of common mobility card has been started in 100 of DTC and cluster buses, a Transport Department official said.
“The difficulties encountered during the trial are being ironed out. With availability of more chips, the scheme will be announced for the public,” he said. Currently, ETMs are deployed on all cluster buses run by Delhi Integrated Multi Modal Transit System. The DTC too owns over 8,000 such devices, the officials said.
Delhi Metro Rail Corporation(DMRC) sources said that over 70 per cent of its daily commuters who number over 27 lakh, use smart cards for travelling.