Tag: NCMC

PM e-Bus Sewa Is Here; 10,000 Electric Buses To Be Deployed On PPP Model Across India

In what can only be considered a big boost for public transport, clean air and people’s pockets, the Cabinet approved the PM e-Bus Sewa on 16 August 2023.

Under this scheme, the Centre plans to deploy 10,000 electric buses across the country. According to the release on the Press Information Bureau, the buses will be deployed under the public-private partnership (PPP) model across 169 cities while the infrastructure will be upgraded in 181 cities under Green Urban Mobility Initiatives (GUMI). The estimated cost of the PM e-Bus Sewa is expected to be ₹57,613 crore and is expected to generate over 45,000 direct jobs.

All cities with a population above three lakh (as per the 2011 census) along with the capital cities of Union Territories, Northeastern region and the hill states will be covered with priority being given to those cities that currently do not have an organised bus service.

The programme is divided into two segments:

Segment A involves augmenting city bus services in 169 cities along with providing support for the associated infrastructure, upgradation of depots, establishment of substations, etc.

Segment B will cover GUMI across 181 cities. Here, initiatives such as bus priority, multimodal transit, NCMC-based payment systems, and charging infrastructure will be provided.

States, cities and the parastatals will be responsible for making payments to the private operators while the Centre will provide subsidies to the extent provided under the scheme.

This scheme is great news for India as it will impact not just public transport, but a lot of things. For starters, it will give a huge fillip to the manufacturing and the supply-chain ecosystem of buses, their components, and behind-the-meter infrastructure. The increased availability of buses will also change how people perceive commuting and how they actually commute.

One good news that merged right away was Volvo’s entry into the electric bus segment in India. Volvo India stated that it would consider entering the sector under either the Volvo or Eicher brand.

While the government has done a lot in improving the electricity supply system with an increase in renewable energy including solar, wind and even hydel power, it needs to scale up on nuclear power.

Do read this article written by me for Swarajya in 2018: India Needs An Electric-Vehicle Policy; Here’s How It Can Go About It. The government seems to be doing what I had proposed five years ago.

Also, do read Aashish Chandorkar’s article from 2016, on How Indian Cities Can Shift From Diesel To Electric Buses for it explains economies of scale very well.

The shift from the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JnNURM, with a jurm of a logo) to the Atal Mission for Rejuvenation and Urban Transformation (AMRUT) to Faster Adoption and Manufacturing of (Hybrid &) Electric Vehicles in India (FAME) to now PM e-Bus Sewa has been quite fantastic.

Featured Image: Image by macrovector on Freepik

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NCMC Is Here; But Problems Will Persist

Public transit in India has a problem of plenty, on multiple levels. Plenty of obstacles, that is.

Obstacles, such as lack of political will to plan and execute projects at the state level, the Not-In-My-Backyard (NIMBY) syndrome among persons who may or may not be affected by a planned project, a militant civil society, among various others.

One of these obstacles also include the variety of fare collection media. Most cities of India have not been able to replicate successful projects, like Oyster (London), Octopus (Hong Kong), Nol (Dubai), OMNY (New York), on their public transit systems, demonstrating a lack of coordination between the different public transit system operators. Most of such attempts – such as the GO MUMBAI card, designed for a single ticketing system on the BEST and the Mumbai Local – failed miserably, due to the transit operators’ resistance, or a half-baked product, or a private contractor lacking the required expertise to support the project, etc, or a mix of all of them[1]. Although, to be fair, the public transit systems in cities like London, Hong Kong, Dubai, New York etc are run directly or indirectly by a unified city-level transit agency, like Transport for London, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (New York), Roads and Transport Authority (Dubai) and MTR Corporation (Hong Kong) – something which, as conventional wisdom suggests, may be in the realm of impossibility in India.

A national common mobility card had been on the drawing board since 2010. The card was titled “More” – a reference to the peacock – and was first launched in Delhi, for unified payments on the Delhi Metro and DTC buses. This too, failed, due to a lack of effort from all stakeholders. Delhi Metro, DTC and the Rapid Metro Gurgaon now have the ONE DELHI card, a closed-loop system.

In view of the failures of the past on this front, the Modi government launched the National Common Mobility Card in 2019, with a different approach this time. This time, banks too were involved in the project, and so was the National Payments Corporation of India (NPCI)[2]. Under this new approach, NCMC wasn’t launched as one card, but as a set of technological standards developed by Bharat Electronics Ltd (BEL), the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), and the NPCI, to be adopted by all transit operators and projects, who are free to choose their own issuer and acquirer banks to run their respective fare collection and management projects. NCMCs mandatorily have to be RuPay contactless cards issued by banks – debit, credit or prepaid – making them eligible to be used for purposes other than public transit fares too.[3] Due to them being RuPay cards issued by banks, it is easy to scale up operations for public transit systems not using automated fare collection (AFC) systems, such as buses.

While now is the closest India has ever come to a truly “national” common mobility card, there is still a long way to go. Cities like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, continue to be very heavily reliant on suburban railway services operated by the concerned zones of the Indian Railways, by using legacy infrastructure. Most importantly, suburban railways, like the mainline long-distance operations, use the proof-of-payment system (PoP) for fare collection. The PoP system entails passengers buying tickets from the ticket windows or online (through the UTS app), and then using the train. The only fare control system, in this case, are random checks by ticket examining staff onboard or at the destination. Most of the times, these random checks are limited to AC trains, and the first-class carriages on non-AC trains. Thus, this makes for a highly inefficient mode of fare collection, control and management, due to the high possibility of fare evasion by passengers.

However, there seems to be no viable alternative to PoP systems on suburban railways. While suburban rail systems currently under construction, such as K-RIDE’s Bengaluru Suburban Rail Project, can adopt the AFC systems, changing the fare collection system on existing systems, and that too, heavily-used systems like the Mumbai Suburban Railway, may prove to be difficult without rebuilding the system from the ground up. Moreover, due to there being different fare classes and products (single journey tickets, return journey tickets, season tickets for first and second class, and also the luggage compartment), converting to AFC systems is all the more difficult.

[1] R. Aklekar, Mumbai’s experiment with smart card fails, DNA (04/01/2010), available at https://www.dnaindia.com/speak-up/report-mumbai-s-experiment-with-smart-card-fails-1447695, last seen on 26/01/2023.

[2] https://www.npci.org.in/PDF/npci/rupay/2020/Concept_Note_Implementation_of_RuPay_qSPARC_based_NCMC%20v2.1.pdf

[3] https://www.npci.org.in/what-we-do/rupay-contactless/live-members

Featured Image: Mumbai One and Chalo NCMC (Photo: Gandharva Purohit, Used with Permission)

Also Read: American Elections Are Like Indian Transport: Fragmented

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A Ride In BEST Using The New Tap-In, Tap-Out System

On 20 April 2022, the Brihanmumbai Electricity Supply and Transport undertaking (BEST) launched its first digital bus which had a new “Tap-In and Tap-Out” system. This system is similar to London’s Oyster Card; the only difference is that in London you don’t have to tap out since there is a single fare structure on their routes. Out of curiosity I wanted to try this system since I have been thinking about this after BEST launched their conductor-less bus services.

On 3 May I went to Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and took A-115 to Churchgate. When I reached Churchgate Station there were two Electric buses on A-112 (Ahilyabai Holkar Chowk, Churchgate to Gateway of India) but since both buses didn’t have the tap-in/tap-out machines, I skipped both buses and waited for 10 -15 minutes. Then came a CNG Midi bus from Mumbai Central Depot (7147) on the same route. It never came to mind that this bus is the bus I have been waiting for. So I thought I would go back to CSMT Bus Station after taking a short trip to Gateway Of India.

A-112 between Ahilyabai Holkar Chowk, Churchgate Station and Gateway of India. (Photo: Vishal Naik)
A-112 between Ahilyabai Holkar Chowk, Churchgate Station and Gateway of India. (Photo: Vishal Naik)

I bought a ticket from the ground booking conductor using an NCMC (National Common Mobility Card) and he was surprised to see it since for him it was first time seeing this new card. After telling him about how the card works after tapping it on ticket machine, I boarded the bus and after a few seconds I noticed that there were tap-in/tap-out machines installed at the front and rear doors respectively.

Successful Tap-In (Photo: Vishal Naik)
Successful Tap-In (Photo: Vishal Naik)

After the end of this trip, I boarded the bus again. I asked the conductor if I could use my card directly on the machines he agreed and at first my NCMC sadly didn’t work so next I used my normal Chalo Card, and it worked like a charm. There was a person who was monitoring this system inside the bus. I asked him why NCMC didn’t work, and he replied that they haven’t updated this system yet which is why my NCMC wasn’t being accepted by the machine. Finally at the end of the journey I had to tap out after that the fare amount was displayed along with the balance remaining in the card on the machine and I got a printed ticket.

Tapping-Out at the destination (Photo: Vishal Naik)
Tapping-Out at the destination (Photo: Vishal Naik)

Overall the system looks good, only one thing that should be skipped is printing paper tickets because at the end the machine displays remaining balance and the amount deducted for your card. The driver keeps a tab on commuters who are tapping in making sure that no one enters the bus without tapping in or having valid tickets. If a person forgets to tap out in the next tap In maximum fare will be deducted from his card balance. This system will get rid of those time consuming conductor-less services.

The Printed Ticket at the end (Photo: Vishal Naik)
The Printed Ticket at the end (Photo: Vishal Naik)

Before introducing more routes BEST should increase the sales of Chalo Smart card as well as Chalo NCM. It seems like very few NCMCshave been sold because every time I show mine to any conductor it is their first time seeing an NCM. Once Mumbai Metro and the Mumbai Suburban Railway integrate NCMC in their system commuters can easily change modes of transport without carrying multiple cards.

Featured Image: BEST’s Tap-In, Tap-Out system (Photo: Vishal Naik)

If you are stepping out, do note that while masks are no longer mandatory, the new XE variant of the Wuhan Virus is making the rounds. Stay safe, better safe than sorry.

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