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Product Design: Metro Ticketing System Revamped

Apr 2, 2020 · 5 min read

Design a system that allows both daily metro users and occasional visitors to access the metro without a physical MetroCard.

Pain Points

For users: Long waits to buy or reload physical cards. Hygiene concerns with shared machines. Risk of losing the card. Friction for occasional visitors who don't want a dedicated card.

For metro operators: Infrastructure costs for physical card systems. Fare evasion through card sharing. Card replacement overhead.

Three Solutions Considered

Facial biometric scanning: Rejected. Mask-wearing and lighting variations make this unreliable at scale, particularly post-COVID.

Debit/credit card swiping: Rejected. Security concerns, hygiene issues with shared readers, and fraud risk make this a step backward rather than forward.

Mobile wallet QR codes: Selected. This is the right answer.

The MetroPass System

Users display a QR code from payment apps (Paytm, PhonePe, Uber, Ola) at the gate for instant fare deduction. Key features:

  • Full trip history visible in-app
  • Wallet top-ups without visiting a kiosk
  • Route-finding with real-time arrival estimates
  • Refund processing for delays or errors

Why This Works

The system leverages existing payment infrastructure that users already trust and use daily. There's no new app to download, no new account to create. Daily commuters and occasional visitors both benefit — the friction cost is near zero for anyone who has a smartphone and a payment app.

The metro operator benefits too: reduced kiosk infrastructure costs, elimination of physical card fraud, and better transaction data for route optimization.