Indian Railways to launch Paperless Ticketing system on Rajdhani, Shatabdi trains in collaboration with ISRO

Indian Railways to launch Paperless Ticketing system on Rajdhani, Shatabdi trains in collaboration with ISRO

Railways, ISRO to join hands in this initiative on a large scale basis. This system is available through a mobile application developed by the CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems). The reason for choosing Rajdhani, Shatabdi trains first for paperless ticketing system is that near 99.9% passengers of premier trains are likely to have mobile phones, says the Railways – hence an initiative; says Railway Board

New Delhi: Stepping up efforts to reduce usage of paper, Railways have decided to introduce paperless mobile ticketing system in premium trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi services. In its effort to become paperless, the Indian Railways is in talks with Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) to have a GPS  linked mobile ticketing system.

“Currently, the paperless ticketing system is operational in unreserved ticketing for commuters in Egmore and Tambram suburban section in Chennai on a pilot basis. Our aim is to extend the paperless ticketing system in both reserved and unreserved segment in phases. While the system is at present operational in a suburban section in Chennai, we will cover all suburban services soon and then it will be extended to reserved segment also,” said Member (Traffic)/Railway Board Mr.Ajay Shukla in New Delhi on Thursday. The Railways are going to introduce a mobile app that will indicate the locations at which a passenger starts his journey and completes it.  The new IT Application will allow passengers to book and receive ticket on mobile phones.

He said passengers of the premier trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi will be the first to have this paperless mobile ticketing facility. This system is available through a mobile application developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) – an Indian Railways’ software wing. “The GPS linked system require mapping of the area and ISRO is doing that. We are in advanced stages of discussions with ISRO to develop such Mobile App,” Member (Traffc), Railway Board Ajay Shukla. Though mapping is available on Google, the Railways is opting for ISRO for the security reasons, said a railway official.

The reason for choosing Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains first for paperless ticketing system is that all most 99.9% of passengers of premier trains are likely to have mobile phones, he said. Shukla said, however, before introducing the system in the reserved ticketing segment, refund rules will be rationalised so that passenger will not have any problem in getting their money back if a ticket is being cancelled.

Railways consume about 600 tonnes paper for printing tickets and reservation charts in a year. The national transporter expect to earn carbon credit, if printing of tickets is eliminated completely.

Railways is also planning to launch multi-lingual portals for reservation of tickets. “Currently, it is in English and Hindi and we want the portals to be in all regional languages,” he said. In order to accommodate more passengers, Shukla said the number of coaches of certain popular trains will be increased to 24.