Indian Railways has a “gift” for Mumbai’s harrowed commuters this new year. It will be installing and operationalising 350 Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) for the city’s western and central railway lines on January 1. What sweetens the deal is the fact that the gift comes free of cost to the Railways.

“We have received a lot of interest for supply of these machines from several German and Austrian companies and we are likely to finalise contracts soon,” said a highly placed railway official. “In fact, these companies are willing to supply all the machines to us free of cost. In return, we will be allowing the (selected) vendors of these machines to advertise behind each ticket issued as well as on the body and screen of the machines.” A maximum of 40 such machines are planned to be installed at each station in the city.

According to the official, this arrangement means that the railways incurs no capital cost, recurring cost or transaction cost on the sale of these tickets. This would include savings to the tune of Rs 1.5 lakh for the price of each of the 350 machines to be installed in Mumbai in the first phase. A saving of around Rs 525 crore. “We are first going to see how this system works out in Mumbai and if it goes well, we will be implementing it next in Delhi and Chennai,” the official said. “In a couple of years, we plan to install around 9,000-10,000 such machines across the country.” To ensure that the vendors keep these machines running efficiently, the Railways is working towards creating several incentives.

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