Commuters at the A.P. State Road Transport Corporation’s (APSRTC) Pandit Nehru Bus Station have been facing inconvenience due to unavailability of the digital payment mode in some of the ticket counters.
With the staff at the counters insisting on payment only in cash, many passengers are forced to rush to the nearest ATM, which is crowded most of the time.
“The probability of missing the bus is very high in this situation,” said Bhamidipati Nageswara Rao, heading home in Anantapur district.
RTC officials attribute the “temporary inconvenience” to non-feasibility of the technology deployed in the past for the purpose.
In the past, the APSRTC used static QR code displayed by a merchant establishment and which was linked to an individual business account. When the customer scanned the same using any Unified Payments Interface (UPI) app, the communication channelled with the payment gateway was established, and the amount entered by the customer was debited from the account linked to the customer account and credited to the account linked to the merchant account.
“But this is not a suitable technology since it involves entry of the amount by the customer, and hence has the potential for misappropriation, or loss of revenue for the bus transport where reconciliation of revenue received service-wise and ticket-wise for each journey is essential,” said corporation’s Chief Engineer V. Sudhakar.
During the COVID-19 days, the APSRTC implemented the static QR code payment system at the counters and also at the cargo counters, but later withdrew the same.
“We have developed a new technology called the dynamic QR code, and we have also successfully implemented it via the ePOS machines inside all the buses, non-stop booking counters and the cargo booking counters,” informed Mr. Sudhakar.
“In the new technology, the QR code is not displayed statically, but is generated specifically for the ticket being purchased at the moment and displayed on the monitor for the customer to scan and pay. Here, the customer need not enter the amount, as it is already calculated by the system and displayed on the monitor,” he explained.
Mr. Sudhakar said only the advance reservation counters were yet to be integrated with the new technology, as a thorough testing is underway to provide a fool-proof payment solution to the customer.
“We may complete the process in the next 10 days,” he said, informing that the present count of UPI transactions for bus ticket purchase had crossed 30,000 per day.
