Paperless mobile ticketing system in railways soon

NEW DELHI: Aiming to earn carbon credits while saving the costs of printing tickets, the railways plan to incrementally introduce a paperless mobile ticketing system for 23 million passengers who travel by train each day — beginning with the Rajdhani and Shatabdi passengers.

Once the plan is fully rolled out, the railways will be able to substantially save paper and printing costs. Currently, the national transporter annually consumes 600 tonnes of paper to print tickets and passenger charts.

A mobile application developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) has been successfully tested on commuters on the Egmore-Tambram suburban section in Chennai. “The service will be extended in all suburban services. Passengers on the premier Shatabdi and Rajdhani trains — who are the likeliest to be carrying mobile phones — will be the first to have the opportunity to use the application,” railway board member (traffic) Ajay Shukla said.

The country’s public transporter will rationalise the refund rules before introducing the application in the reserved ticketing segment.

The railways will also launch a multi-lingual portal to benefit passengers who wish to purchase tickets in regional/vernacular languages, Shukla said. Currently, such services are available only in English and Hindi.