BMTC to replace 8 lakh bus passes with smart cards

The Bengaluru Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) is gearing up to replace bus passes with smart cards in a phased manner.

“Henceforth, we will issue closed-loop smart cards as bus passes,” BMTC managing director V Ponnuraj said.

“We have a stock of around 20,000 smart cards which will be given to students. Once we finish giving smart cards to students who applied for yearly passes, we will replace other (kinds of) passes with smart cards,” he added. With this move, all paper passes other than the daily pass will be history.


The BMTC issues 70 kinds of passes including monthly passes and students passes to around eight lakh people. Even employees of government departments such as transport, revenue and personnel and administrative reforms get passes at concessional rates.

The BMTC earlier worked on a similar project in association with Axis Bank. However, the initiative failed as the smart cards were open-loop. The corporation is confident that the new closed-loop system will be a success.

The managing director believes replacing paper passes with closed-loop smart cards will cut down discrepancies in the system. “Through digital adoption, we want to streamline the 70 types of passes. In the new system, pass-holders will have to swipe every time they get into the bus,” Ponnuraj added.

The other major benefit of replacing paper passes with smart cards is that the BMTC will be able to track the routes on which pass-holders are travelling. “Lakhs of passengers use buses passes everyday but we are not able understand on which routes these passes are being used,” a BMTC official said.

In the present system, the conductor often checks bus passes but there is no system to feed the data of how many pass-holders travelled on a particular route.

“There is lack of information on which routes there are more pass-holders. Some routes might have less ticket sales but there could be more pass-holders. Going digital will be definitely be of help,” the official added.

NGT nod awaited

The induction of 1,000 buses are stuck at the National Green Tribunal (NGT), which is hearing the case related to purchase of diesel engine buses over CNG buses. “We are pursuing the matter and are confident to get a clearance from NGT,” a BMTC official said.

These 1,000 buses are part of the total 1,500 buses that are being funded by the state government. In the 2016-17 State Budget, then chief minister Siddaramaiah had announced financial support to the purchase of 1,500 buses. “Already, we have bought 500 midi-buses,” the official added.

In the past three years, the transport utility has bought 1,674 new buses including 150 air-conditioned buses. The BMTC, during the same period, has scrapped around 1,000 old buses. “Those buses, which are either 11 years old or have run over 8.5 lakh kilometers are being scrapped. This year, we will be scrapping around 1,300 buses,” the official said.