Ticket issuing machines in RTC buses by October

HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation is planning to introduce Ticket Issuing Machines in bus services across the state.All buses in the state would be provided with TIMs, either with the driver or conductor, by the end of October,  according to RTC deputy chief mechanical engineer M Raja Sekhar.Latest TIMs have a longer battery life. Once these machines are connected to computers, all details pertaining to number of tickets issued, seat occupancy, etc would be displayed on the computer.The machines will lessen the manual work of conductors like punching tickets. The TIMs would enable them to issue group tickets in one slip instead of separate tickets for all passengers of a group, he explained.Further, the conductors need not write statistical return (SR) to verify the number of tickets issued and the cash collected as all the details would be displayed on the TIM gadget screen with the touch of a button. The machines are being manufactured by the Electronics Corporation of India Limited and two other private firms, Raja Sekhar said."Nalgonda,  Shadnagar and Sangareddy area bus stations  have already been using these TIMs. A conventional TIM costs about `12,000 and if things go as planned, the project would be completed before October, '' Sekhar Reddy said.TIMs have been launched on a pilot basis in Nalgonda and initially conductors in long-distance buses were provided with these  machines. Conductors and drivers would be trained to use the machines and bus drivers who have no conductors  would be paid an additional `500 per month, he said.