Indian Railways' South Central Railway(SCR) resumed the services of The Multi Modal Transport System (MMTS) in the twin cities of Hyderabad - Secunderabad after a gap of nearly fifteen months.
"It's a good decision. Travelling by auto is very expensive," said a commuter to news agency ANI after the resumption of the MMTS service.
The MMTS service was introduced to cater the needs of Intra-city and sub-urban traffic in twin cities of Hyderabad and Secunderabad. Over time, the number of MMTS services was increased leading to rise in the patronage for these train services. However, due to the unexpected challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic and in view of the need to curtail the spread of COVID -19, the MMTS services in twin cities were been suspended from 23 March last year.
MMTS train services resumed from 23 June 2021 to cater the needs travel needs of the intra-city and suburban rail commuters in the twin city region. To begin with, 10 MMTS train services will operate from 23 June, 2021 as detailed below:
MMTS passengers can avail benefits of extended season tickets
The Railways in a statement said that,"Due to the cancellation of the MMTS train services during March 2020, some of the season ticket holders having a valid tenure couldn't utilize their tickets for the remaining period."" To assist such ticket holders, Railway Board has extended the validity of all the season tickets to the extent of number of days lost, from the date of resumption of the train services i.e., 23 June 2021. All such season tickets are eligible for extending the tenure with effect from 23rd June 2021 in proportion to the number of days lost i.e., in terms of the remaining tenure of the valid season tickets as such, passengers holding valid Season tickets (purchased either on App or at booking counters) should approach the booking counters at MMTS/ Sub-urban stations to validate and extend their existing season tickets," the statement further added.
All avenues available for purchasing tickets-Extra benefits to go cash-less
Apart from the option of purchasing tickets at the Booking counters, all cash-less modes of purchasing MMTS tickets will be functional for the MMTS travelers. Further, to encourage passengers to opt for contact-less and Cash-less purchase of MMTS tickets, these cash-less modes of ticket purchases are also being given additional benefits as below.
• ATVMS (Automatic Ticket Vending Machines) are available at all major MMTS stations, wherein purchases can be done through Smart cards. Passengers booking tickets through ATVMs will get an additional benefit of 3% bonus purchases, Passengers wanting to opt for purchasing through ATVMS via Smart Cards or those Passengers wanting to extend their validity of their earlier Smart cards can get it done at any of the ticket booking counters at MMTS/Sub-urban stations
• Passengers can also buy MMTS tickets through Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) mobile App (available for all Android, Windows and iOS based Smartphone users). This facility can be used for purchasing both journey tickets as well as season tickets. Here, passengers can get an additional 5% bonus in case they opt to pay via the R-Wallet available in the app.