The mumbai suburban railway smart card (autosaved)

Title Page

Project report on :-

Project submitted by :- Deepak S Vaishnav

Kiran Devi Saraf Institute

S.V. Raod Malad (West)

Mumbai -61

Submitted to :- Honourable Saurabh Sir

Kinjal __________

1

Introduced in the Year

Presenting the Railway Budget for 2008-09 in the Lok Sabha today, the

Minister of Railways, Shri Lalu Prasad announced availability of rail ticket,

monthly season ticket and platform ticket on smart card in Mumbai

Suburban Service. This service would be launched by the end of next month.

The Central Railways has already started trial run for this purpose through

public-private partnership. 

WESTERN RAILWAY INAUGRATED SMART CARD

Western Railway facilitated Ms Sayali Phadke, student for using the ATVM

Smart Card right from the time when it was launched. Shri G.S. Banerjee,

Chief Commercial Manager, Western Railway presented Ms Sayali a

beautiful replica of the oldest Steam Locomotive ‘Fairy Queen’ and

‘Western Railway – Heritage Traditions & Legend’ published by Western

Railway as mementoes.

On this occasion, Shri Banerjee said that at present 109 ATVMs are working

on WR’s Mumbai Suburban Section and it is planned to procure 130 more

ATVMs for the convenience of commuters. Ms Sayali Phadke hailed WR’s

efforts to popularise use of ATVMs. She said that buying tickets

through ATVM smart cards is very convenient and easy. She

said that it saves a lot of her valuable time.

2

WR introduced ATVMs on 10th October, 2007 and her smart

card was bought on the same day. Ms Sayali has been using

this card for commuting regularly on Western & Central lines.

She appealed to the commuters to use smart cards to avoid

queues and to get their journey tickets conveniently.

The Mumbai Suburban Railway Smart Card (ATVM Card)

Yesterday, I happened to go to Churchgate station. I decided to buy the

Mumbai Suburban Railway Smart Card (aka ATVM Card). I had read about

it earlier, and also seen others use it. I thought it might be useful to own a

card. Here are the details you need to know (some photographs of the Smart

Card / Receipt / Ticket are at the end of this post):

Unlike the B.E.S.T. Smart Card, the railway smart card allows the

card holder to purchase tickets from a machine called "Automated

Ticket Vending Machine" (ATVM).

The ATVMs have been installed at some (not all yet) stations; I've

seen ATVMs at some stations that are yet to be made functional. One

can be sure that the major stations have multiple functional ATVMs.

3

The card is "loaded" with an initial amount (or when it is refilled).

The fare of the tickets purchased is deducted from the amount on the

card.

This scheme works on both the Central and Western suburban railway

stations. It is valid only for the Mumbai suburban section.

Purchasing A card

Go to any ticket counter that is marked (some board near the counter

tells you which one) to sell the Smart Card.

The Smart Card can be loaded / refilled in multiples of Rs. 50, upto

Rs. 500

Initially, the Smart Card itself has a deposit of Rs. 50 (which is

refundable under some reasonable conditions mentioned at the back of

the Smart Card).

(Probably) To attract customers to this scheme, the railways are

offering a 5% bonus amount on every charge of the card. For

example, if you load the card with Rs. 100, your card would actually

be loaded with Rs. 105.

4

To buy tickets using the Smart Card:

Go to an ATVM. Place the card on the sensor on the ATVM. The

ATVM has a touch-screen interface.

Select the language (Hindi, Marathi, English).

Choose the destination (zone)...and the station from the railway route

map.

Choose the number of adults and children.

Select "Print" to print the tickets.

The tickets are dispensed through the ATVM slot.

Here are some initial observations:

Not all stations have the ATVMs installed. I landed up at Matunga (C.

R.) only to find that the ATVMs were still kept in packed plastic

covers.

The card can be used by anyone. So, one of the benefits is that it could

be shared by family members. The downside is that if the card is

stolen / lost, it could be misused by whoever gets it.

5

The time printed on the ATVM-issued ticket is the current time of the

ATVM. One is supposed to commence the journey within 1 hour of

this time. This is unlike the card tickets issued at the counter. The time

is usually rounded up to the next hour. So, if you buy a regular card

ticket at 10:05, the time printed on the card ticket would be 11:00.

That gives one extra time to commence the journey.

The user interface of the ATVM is not the best. It took me sometime

to figure out how to get the interface in the English language. Second,

I could not easily locate Matunga Road (as opposed to Matunga); the

map is divided into zones, probably selecting the right zone is enough.

It gave me a list of stations after selecting the zone, from which one

has to select the destination. The other parts of the interface are also a

bit confusing for the new user.

It is not clear how the ATVM is supposed to "save time" in the long

run. In the short run, of course, only those who have the cards line up

for the ATVM. Thus, the ATVM queues could be expected to be

much, much smaller than the ones at the ticket counters. In the long

run, however, if many had these cards, the ATVM queues would

probably be longer since it takes quite a while to conduct a transaction

at the ATVM.

6

Here are the images for the front and back of the Smart Card:

Front-side has some "rules" for the refund.

The back-side has some "rules" for the refund.

The receipt provided along with the Smart Card that one is supposed to

carefully preserve!

A ticket purchased from a normal ticket window

7

A ticket purchased using the Smart Card (Mumbai CST to Matunga).

8

Limitations of Smart Card

Smart Card does not give you a ticket for a furthest station on that perticular

Slab if you opt for a station prior to that.

eg. If you Select Vile Parle from Virar's ATVM , you should get Khar

printed on ticket because Vile Parle and Khar both are Rs 11. 

From Virar to Churchgate there are total 28 stations with 9 slabs of fare.

Thus effectively the ATVM should print tickets with these 9 stations... In

bracket is amount for Single II class.

which are :-

Vasai (Rs .4)

Naigaon (6) 

Kandivli (8)

Goregaon (9)

Andheri (10) 

Khar (11)

Dadar (12) 

Mahalaxmi (13)

Church gate (14)

it is not important that the desired ticket is obtained but commuter should get

9

farther most station ticket. because hardly any one knows these slabs.

So if some one buy a ticket for Nalasopara and could not get down becos of

Rush, and managed to get down at Vasai , he /she will be treated ticketless

even had paid till Vasai. So this is one of Flaw in ATVM/Smart card system.

Using A Card

GO MUMBAI CARD

The card allows a passenger to travel on trains without standing in

ticket queues

Commuter has to swipe the card at validators before and after a

journey

Fare is automatically deducted from the prepaid amount of the card

Aim :-

10

The multi-application cards, already in use in countries like Singapore, Hong

Kong, USA, Australia, and Europe works on radio frequency of 13.56 MHz.

The debit card has to be swiped against validators. The idea behind

introducing this system is to aim for total cash-less transaction with

complete security and also to reduce long queues. The card can be used for

passes or tickets in trains and buses. Each card has an embedded micro-

processor chip which reads and processes the data i.e. the type of ticket

bought,

Launching of a Smart Card

With the introduction of a new smart card system on the city's suburban railway line,

railway authorities are hoping the long queues at stations that lead to many a frayed temper,

will be significantly reduced.

As per the scheme which was inaugurated today passengers who buy the smart cards would

have to pay a refundable deposit of Rs 50 and purchase a recharge worth between Rs 50 to

Rs 500 at specified windows at stations.

These can be used on the machines to purchase tickets for Western or Central Railways

suburban line services.

11

Almost all the 125 automated ticket vending machines (ATVM), have been installed in

most of the stations of the Western Railway suburban line presently and are expected to be

installed at stations of Central Railways within a few months, General Manager (Western

and Central Railways) A K Jhingron said.

As an incentive, passengers get 5 per cent off the value of the purchased refill added to their

account free. Additionally, passengers who use the cards can return them once used and

after a deduction of Rs 10, the remainder of the refill amount would be refunded back to the

passenger.

The previous initiative of the railways, coupon validating machines had failed after most of

the machines went defunct and were not repaired, but in the case of the ATVMs a central

control monitors the status of each machine to ensure that it is functional.

"All the machines are connected to the central server and if any problems are detected we

can promptly send someone to deal with it," Alok Chaturvedi, Chief Manager at Centre for

Railway Information Systems, said.

Technical working of Smart Card

Contact smart cards have a contact area of approximately 1 square centimetre (0.16 sq in), comprising several gold-plated contact pads. These pads provide electrical connectivity

12

when inserted into a reader.

The ISO/IEC 7810 and ISO/IEC 7816 series of standards define:

physical shape and characteristics electrical connector positions and shapes electrical characteristics communications protocols , including commands sent to and responses from the card basic functionality

Cards do not contain batteries; power is supplied by the card reader.

Communication protocols

Name Description

T=0Character-level transmission protocol, defined in ISO/IEC 7816-3

T=1 Block-level transmission protocol, defined in ISO/IEC 7816-3

Signals

13

A smart card pinout

VCC Power supply.

RST Reset signal, used to reset the card's communications.

CLK Provides the card with a clock signal, from which data communications timing is derived.

GND Ground (reference voltage).

VPP ISO/IEC 7816-3:1997 designated this as a programming voltage - an input for a higher voltage to program persistent memory (e.g.,EEPROM).ISO/IEC 7816-3:2006 designates it SPU, for either standard or proprietary use, as input and/or output.

I/O Serial input and output (half-duplex).

C4, C8 The two remaining contacts are AUX1 and AUX2 respectively, and used for USB interfaces and other uses

14

Smartcard Reader on a Laptop

Contact smart card readers are used as a communications medium between the smart card and a host (e.g., a computer, a point of sale terminal) or a mobile telephone.

Because the chips in financial cards are the same as those used in subscriber identity modules (SIMs) in mobile phones, programmed differently and embedded in a different piece of PVC, chip manufacturers are building to the more demanding GSM/3G standards. So, for example, although the EMV standard allows a chip card to draw 50 mA from its terminal, cards are normally well below the telephone industry's 6 mA limit. This allows smaller and cheaper financial card terminals.

Protocol analysis

Hardware and software tools are available to monitor and analyze communications between smart cards and readers

15

STANDARD PROMOTIONAL ADVERTISEMENT

16

At Present

The railway card, called the Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (ATVM) card, has been a hit with Mumbai’s seven million commuters,

and has been extensively used by new and existing commuters.

MY INITIAL OBSERVATION

Not all stations have the ATVMs installed. I landed up at Matunga (C. R.) only to find that the ATVMs were still kept in packed plastic covers. The card can be used by anyone. So, one of the benefits is that it could be shared by family members. The downside is that if the card is stolen / lost, it could be misused by whoever gets it.

The time printed on the ATVM-issued ticket is the current time of the ATVM. One is supposed to commence the journey within 1 hour of this time. This is unlike the card tickets issued at the counter. The time is usually rounded up to the next hour. So, if you buy a regular card ticket at 10:05, the time printed on the card

17

ticket would be 11:00. That gives one extra time to commence the journey. The user interface of the ATVM is not the best. It took me sometime to figure out how to get the interface in the English language. Second, I could not easily locate Matunga Road (as opposed to Matunga); the map is divided into zones, probably selecting the right zone is enough. It gave me a list of stations after selecting the zone, from which one has to select the destination. The other parts of the interface are also a bit confusing for the new user. It is not clear how the ATVM is supposed to "save time" in the long run. In the short run, of course, only those who have the cards line up for the ATVM. Thus, the ATVM queues could be expected to be much, much smaller than the ones at the ticket counters. In the long run, however, if many had these cards, the ATVM queues would probably be longer since it takes quite a while to conduct a transaction at the ATVM.

18

PROCEDURE OF GETTING TICKET VIA SMART CARD

To purchase the card, the procedure is simple:

Go to any ticket counter that is marked (some board near the counter tells you which one) to sell the Smart Card.

The Smart Card can be loaded / refilled in multiples of Rs. 50, upto Rs. 500

Initially, the Smart Card itself has a deposit of Rs. 50 (which is refundable under some reasonable conditions mentioned at the back of the Smart Card).

(Probably) To attract customers to this scheme, the railways are offering a 5% bonus amount on every charge of the card. For example, if you load the card with Rs. 100, your card would actually be loaded with Rs. 105.

To buy tickets using the Smart Card:

Go to an ATVM. Place the card on the sensor on the ATVM. The ATVM has a touch-screen interface.

Select the language (Hindi, Marathi, English). Choose the destination (zone)...and the station from the railway route

map. Choose the number of adults and children. Select "Print" to print the tickets. The tickets are dispensed through the ATVM slot.

19