EGYPT – Egypt’s National Authority for Tunnels is set to launch new automatic ticket machines in Egypt’s metro lines to enhance revenue collection and cut time spend by commuters in obtaining tickets.
The National Authority for Tunnels has already awarded the tender for supply of automatic ticket machines to a French ticketing company, Revenue Collection Systems France SAS.
According to a report by Egypt Today the new machines are expected to cover the stations of the first and second lines completely.
To enhance flexibility in payment, the automatic ticketing machines are going to operate either coin, paper currencies or bank credit cards.
The National Authority for Tunnels launched the tender last November and set January 20 to meet and submit technical and financial bids, and 3 companies submitted for the tender.
Reports from the National Authority for Tunnels however, indicate that one of the three companies was technically rejected by the Authorities main decision making committee.
This left the French ticketing company to go head to head in the tender bidding with Andra Systems, a Spanish based company.
Revenue Collection Systems was however the more competitive bidder, submitting a bid of US$ 4.78 million (about LE76 million) for the supply of the automatic ticketing machines.
Andra lost to the French company after it submitted a higher tender quote that totalled to about US$5.34 million (about LE85 million) and lower technical evaluation.
Revenue Collection Systems France SAS, supplies automatic metro ticket-issuance machines for the first- and second-line stations, as part of the plan to install automatic metro ticket issuance machines in all three lines’ stations.
The company has also been previously contracted to purchase 50 TVM machines for the third line stations.
Egypt Today reports that first batches of the TVM machines were installed in the fourth phase stations of the third line of the metro from Haroun station to Adly Mansourstation.
The TVM machines are similar to the “ATM” machines for banks, and they work using paper and coin currencies besides bank credit cards.
Through these machines the passenger can extract single-trip tickets or charge the smart card on which subscriptions are charged or used as a cash wallet for the metro’s independence as an alternative to paper tickets.
The new machines will be used by the passenger in extracting metro tickets automatically instead of resorting to standing in front of the ticket counters.
This is expected to cut down time spent in getting metro tickets, improve convenience of the ticketing systems and overall enhance the travel experience of Egyptians using the metro transport network.
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