As an effort to ease queues at ticket counters and save time for travelers, Indian railway would soon launch mobile application to provide season and platform tickets. The service will be available in four metro cities -- Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu announced the plan while launching the paperless unreserved ticketing system (UTS) for Delhi-Palwal suburban. "There are about 75 lakh passengers who use monthly season tickets in Mumbai out of our total 2.3 crore daily passengers," Minister said. "A good number of passengers travel on monthly season tickets in Chennai, Kolkata and Delhi also," he added.
The paperless system was earlier launched as a pilot project between Chennai Egmore and Tambaram suburban section of the Southern Railway during April, and Churchgate - Dahanu Road suburban section of the Western Railway in July.
“Introduction of coin-cum-currency operated ticket vending machine is another step forward in ensuring that passengers get their tickets quickly under Operation Five Minutes announced in the Rail Budget,” he said.
Minister has also inaugurated a cash/smart card-operated ticket vending machine at the New Delhi Railway Station and a mobile app for freight operation monitoring named ‘Parichaalan’.
The UTS app launched for New Delhi and Palwal in Haryana is available for both Android and Windows users. With the ticket booked through the UTS application, a commuter can travel ticketless to any destination on the 52-km Delhi-Palwal section. The commuter just has to show the booking details on the mobile.
Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) “utsonmobile”, the system aims to eliminate printing unreserved tickets. However, ticket windows will also be made available for passengers.
