Chennai Metro – Please enable Chennai Metro Smart Card at Metro Toilets

          It is a pain to search for INR2 coin when rushing to Answer Nature’s Call

          Chennai Metro is steadily seeing its usage rise. The average number of commuters is now at 90,000. There has been a spectacular jump of commuters after the opening of the final stretch of Phase I project from AG-DMS to Washermanpet in the third week of February 2019.

The Last stretch of the Chennai Metro Rail Project from AG-DMS to Washermenpet of 10 kms has been completed and was inaugurated by the Hon'ble Prime Minister of India, Shri Narendra Modi.

          Phase 1 of Chennai Metro has 32 stations spread across Blue Line and Green Line.

          On the most important decisions at the conceptual stage of Chennai Metro is to connect the Chennai Airport in the first phase itself.

          Currently, Chennai Central and Chennai Airport are the favourite stations of commuters as 7,700 and 6,500 people take this system respectively on a daily basis.

Saidapet and Nanganallur are the least used and only 1,100 and 1,200 people travel through them every day.

In connection with the inauguration of passenger services, CMRL conducted trail runs in both Green Line and Blue Line Corridors for stabilizing all systems. Charges were not collected from passengers from10.02.2019 to 13.02.2019. Around 7,34,379 passengers availed the 4 days Free Rides with joy and enthusiasm.

CMRL had taken an initiative of providing several Last Mile Connectivity measures for the Metro Passengers among which Share auto and Share Taxi Feeder services are plying at selected Metro Rail Stations on a trial basis since 11.08.2018. 

A total of Eight Metro Stations were identified for Share Auto Feeder service. The Share Auto Feeder services are running on the designated feeder routes with a flat tariff of Rs.5.

Around 1, 77,924 passengers have availed the Share Auto and Share Taxi feeder services from 11th of August 2018 to 31st of January 2019.

Chennai Metro is taking numerous steps to attract commuters to it’s Metro trains. Another new initiative kickstarted in February 2019, is the tieup with Ford’s Corporate Shuttle Feeder Services called Office Ride today.

In the launch phase, the service is live at  Alandur Metro Station. The aim of this tie-up is to provide nodal connectivity from Metro Stations to high density work areas. The initial focus is on IT Parks, where a large workforce are willing to experiment with alternate modes of safe transport.

This Mobility solution has plans to reduce congestion and provide a smarter and safer daily commute alternative to people travelling from Metro Stations to business parks and corporate hubs in the city.

Ford’s Corporate Shuttle Feeder Services operates in Pune too and is a subsidiary of Ford Motor Company.

Office Ride will provide corporate commuters a smarter, safer and happier daily commuting alternative connecting Alandur metro station to Ascendas, Global Infocity, RMZ Millenia, ELCOT and SIPCOT.

All these steps increase the footfalls at Chennai Metro Stations. Increase in footfalls in turn leads to more usage of Toilets in Chennai Metro Stations. 

The Toilet usage at Chennai Metro Stations is a paid service. Each visit is charged at INR2

Read this article for more information.

Chennai: Metro commuters rue about toilets in paid area

It is a pain to search for INR2 coin when rushing to the toilet. It would be helpful if the Toilet usage charge of INR2, can be paid through Chennai Smart Card.

Benefits of Toilet Access charges via through Chennai Metro Smart Card

01) Eliminate the process of handling small changes across all the Metro stations. No need to count the small change, deposit the small change in Banks, do the recon between the physical deposits and corresponding credit in the Bank accounts.

02) Provide opportunities to provide cashback for the toilet usage charges. Commuters can be refunded the toilet usage charges in their Chennai Metro Smart Card on predefined rules.

Eg) A) Every 100^th commuter

B) Non-Peak Hours usage

C) Frequent user

D) Long distance commuter i.e commuters travelling for more than 30 minutes in Chennai Metro.

E) Etc

03) Tie-up with FMCG companies for focused campaigns

04) Another incentive for Chennaites to travel in Chennai Metro trains.

05) Redeployment of staff handling the Toilet access counters.

06) Eradicate the friction between Metro staff and metro commuters.

07) Opportunity to introduce value-added services like quick shower

Chennai Metro officials are in the process of Chennai Metro Smart Card with the Share Autos and Share Taxis.     

     

          This show that the respective teams are willing to expand the usage of Chennai Metro Smart Cards beyond the conventional modes.

Soon, use Metro card for share autos

Hence, it makes sense to provide access to metro travellers to Toilets in Metro stations through the Smart Card mode.

The technology is already there, and an Out of the Box solution will be great.

Chennai Metro officials have proved themselves in commuter friendly steps, and the icing on the cake will be linking access to Metro Toilets via Chennai Metro Smart Cards.

There will be a maximum of 100 access doors requires across the 32 stations.

 A slight design change may be required, as the same toilets are used by Metro travellers as well as Metro station.

However, the change is worth the effort.  Of course, the same facility shout be available for Trip Card, Tourist Card commuters too.

The existing facility to be continued for ‘Single Journey Token, commuters.