SBI bids for automatic fare collection contract of Agra Metro Rail Project

Agra, India (Metro Rail Today): Uttar Pradesh Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (UPMRCL) has opened the technical bids for the Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) contract package AGAFC-01) of Agra Metro Phase 1 project on 7th March 2023.

According to information shared, the State Bank of India (SBI) is only bidder that submitted their bids.

Tender notice for Design, Manufacture, Supply, Installation, Testing Commissioning of open Loop EMV NCMC card and QR code based Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) System on PPP basis for Agra Metro Project was issued in December 2022 with 1050 days work completion deadline.

This contract will be executed on the public private partnership (PPP) model where the chosen AFC contractor will be responsible for supply, installation, testing & commissioning of the end-to-end Open loop EMV (RuPay/Master/Visa) NCMC card-based AFC system and QR code-based ticketing with each device connected to a central back-office AFC system.

An Automatic Fare Collection System (AFC) is one of the essential station facilities that consists of an automatic gate machine, ticket vending machine, and ticket checking machine.

Delhi Metro is the first Metro in the world to use contactless RFID token and smart cards. Every Metro system in India (Delhi Metro, Kolkata Metro, Rapid Metro Gurgaon, Bengaluru Metro, Mumbai Metro, and other coming Metros) use RFID token and smart cards.

The magnetic token is like ATM card with the magnetic strip on it and is slow as they need proper physical contact to read. So here comes the RFID into the act to reduce the communication time with AFC gates. A revenue collection system in a metro environment works completely on RFID (radio frequency identification) technology.

The Agra Metro Phase 1 project involves the development of 29.4 kilometres long two corridors, with 27 stations to improve connectivity to and from important tourist destinations in the city including the Taj Mahal, Agra Fort, and Sikandra.

For more details, please explore the Agra Metro page of Metro Rail Today.