Chennai metro commuters stuck in queues as online ticketing glitches

CHENNAI: The online ticketing services for Metro Rail were temporarily disrupted on Saturday, inconveniencing commuters.

Services, including QR tickets purchased through the CMRL mobile application, faced a glitch, prompting Chennai Metro to advise passengers to use station ticket counters. Long queues and poor coordination were reported at multiple stations, including St Thomas Mount Metro.

"Most of us have become dependent on QR tickets because they save time. When the online system stopped working, there was no clear arrangement at the counters to manage the additional crowd, " said a passenger at St Thomas Mount station.

Another commuter said the situation could have been handled better. "The staff should have been trained to manage such technical disruptions. More counters should have been opened immediately when the online ticketing system went down," the passenger said.

CMRL later announced that the technical glitch had been rectified within a couple of hours and that online ticketing through the CMRL mobile app was functioning normally. Passengers could also use Static QR, WhatsApp, Paytm and PhonePe for ticketing.