CHENNAI: The Metropolitan Transport Corporation’s electronic ticketing machines (ETMs) were temporarily unavailable on Monday following an unexpected server outage, forcing conductors to issue manual, pre-printed tickets and causing inconvenience to commuters who rely on digital payment methods for their daily travel.
On Monday morning, MTC announced that during the disruption, digital payment modes, including UPI, National Common Mobility Card (NCMC) and debit and credit cards, could not be accepted on board buses.
The Chennai One app was also unavailable for ticketing at the time. The transport undertaking said its technical teams were working to restore the system and that services would be brought back at the earliest.
It expressed regret for the inconvenience caused to commuters and said further updates would be shared.
However, it clarified that online bus ticket bookings were operating normally and that users of the Chennai One app could continue to book tickets and travel without disruption.
Passengers who had purchased Rs 1,000 and Rs 2,000 bus passes through the app were allowed to travel by entering the OTP. In case of any technical error, commuters were advised to show the valid bus pass displayed on the app to the conductor and continue their journey. On average, the MTC issues 1.5 lakh tickets through the digital payment modes such as NCMC and UPI.
A senior MTC official said the technical glitch was rectified by around 9 am to 10 am, but the ETMs were redeployed across all routes only at the end of the conductors’ shifts.
K Arumuga Nainar, general secretary of the CITU-backed Tamil Nadu State Transport Corporation Employees Federation, said passengers who usually pay using UPI were affected the most. “Many of them do not carry exact change for tickets. In some cases, conductors collected payments into their personal accounts and settled the amounts later at the end of their shifts,” he said.