DIGITISING PUBLIC TRANSPORT

Digitising public transport has become of paramount importance amid the Covid-19 environment.

- Deven Lad

The speed of digitisation of public transport is made even more important by Covid-19. It is undoubtedly driven by the need to protect people involved in running the public transport as well as the people using it for travel against the virus. Highlighting this very issue, M Ramachandran, Former Secretary, Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India, stressed on the opportunity to increase efficiency and lower the cost of operations. Stating that there was a need to provide passengers with a new experience, he mentioned that digitisation of public transport has been boosted by the introduction of FASTag.

“Nearly 450 toll plaza have dedicated FASTag lanes, and over 17 million prospects have been issued last month,” he added. Drawing attention to the 17 million prospects having carried out four billion transactions amounting to Rs.65 crores per day, bringing the logistics cost down in the process, Ramachandran expressed that 22 per cent of the national highways with a length of over 150,000 kilometres carry roughly 40 per cent of the traffic, making them a primary mode of transportation in India.