Mobile Ticket sales on Central Railway reach Rs 18,000

Mobile Ticket sales on Central Railway reach Rs 18,000

Mumbai: The Central Railway (CR) has seen ticket sales worth Rs 18,000 via mobile ticketing since between December 27 last year and January 28 this year. The sales have been generated from 20 stations where mobile ticketing have been initiated after railway minister Suresh Prabhu inaugurated the initiative on December 27 at Dadar.

“Around 314 commuters have taken the R-wallet since it was launched and they have recharged the wallet 49,100 times,” said an official.

Officials said that they are still waiting for the initiative to pick up speed within the public and have been advertising mobile ticketing via jingles as commuters tend to listen to the radio while travelling. “The initiative will take time to catch on and once people get used to the application they will fully realise its benefits,” the official added.

The CR had started the initiative in CST, Dadar, Thane and Kalyan, and later added a number of other stations. It plans to implement the facility on all its stations, said CR chief commercial manager, R.D. Sharma. “We are gradually increasing the number of stations that have the mobile ticketing facility. We are hoping that within three months we will cover all the stations,” he added.

However, the R-Wallet does have its problems. One of them is that it requires a minimum balance of Rs 100. Deepti Khera, who travels from Kharghar to Sandhurst, said, “I tried the application at Belapur, but didn’t have a call balance of Rs 100. I think they should try to bring it down to Rs 50 at least.”