Delhi Metro: 78% of Metro commuters use Smart Cards for travel

New Delhi: The Smart Card usage among Delhi Metro commuters for their daily travel has witnessed a significant surge in the year 2022 so far. Since January 2022, around 78% of the Metro commuters are using the Smart Cards for Metro travel on regular basis which used to be around 70% in the Pre-Covid days. It is noteworthy that the year 2020 also recorded 100 percent usage of Smart Cards for 3-4 months when the Metro Services were resumed after 169-days’ complete shutdown in September 2020, and sale of tokens were strictly not allowed as a precautionary measure.

In 2002, Delhi Metro became the first Metro rail in the world to introduce Contact less Smart Tokens (CST) and Contact less Smart Cards (CSC) in place of paper tickets to travel in the Metro. Earlier, these smart cards had to be procured from foreign vendors but now these are completely manufactured in India as a major initiative towards Government of India’s ‘AatmNirbhar Bharat’ mission.

Currently, about 2.5 crore Metro smart cards are in circulation. On an average, about 10-12 thousand Metro Smart cards are being sold each day from the Metro stations and DMRC is also providing dedicated exit gates for Smart Card users only at most of its stations. In addition, a flat 10% discount is provided on each journey and additional 10% discount is also provided if the journey is performed by entering in the Metro system during defined off-peak hours. 

DMRC in the recent past has also launched various initiatives to facilitate easy top up of smart cards to avoid queues and save time at stations. This includes the option of Smart Card Top up through TVMs, launch of Metro Combo cards with various banks, Credit/Debit card transaction facility at stations, net banking using dmrcsmartcard.com, mobile wallets etc.

In addition, initiatives such as 1-day tourist card for unlimited travel in a day (worth Rs. 200/- (Including Rs. 50/- of refundable security deposit), 3-Day Tourist Card for unlimited travel for 3 days (worth Rs. 500/- (Including Rs. 50/- of refundable security deposit) are also available for the commuters.

DMRC intends to increase this figure substantially to a level similar to that of the other Metro systems like Singapore and Hong Kong where almost 100% of Metro users are relying on Smart Cards for their smooth and comfortable daily journey.