Railways to encourage app use for tickets
The facility was first experimented in Chennai and Mumbai followed by the Thiruvananthapuram division in April last.
Kochi: Thiruvananthapuram division was among the first few regions across the country where the railways introduced 'UTS on Mobile' application, which facilitates passengers avail unreserved paperless tickets on their mobiles, last April. However, the tickets availed using the app forms just one per cent of total unreserved tickets sold in the division even after a year.
With long queues being witnessed before ticket counters, especially on week-ends, during the ongoing Vishu-Easter festive season, the Southern Railway has decided to launch a campaign to encourage more passengers avail the app.
"The UTS on Mobile App has grown from 0.3 -0.5 per cent to one per cent of the total UTS tickets in Thiruvananthapuram division. The division is planning to launch various innovative drives and schemes to increase popularity of the App," said a railway spokesperson.
A heavy passenger rush was experienced during the weekend just before the 'Vishu' festival as ticket counters were crowded at many stations. To make matters worse, the Automatic Ticket Vending Machines at stations like Thrissur are non-functional after they developed technical glitch. The maintenance contract period too got expired.
"People are already using mobile apps for availing online taxi service or to order food online. The usage of 'UTS on Mobile app' will help them save precious time as anyone can book tickets using the app if they are within five km radius from the nearest station. The long queues before ticket counters too can be avoided," said P. Krishnakumar, general secretary, Thrissur Railway Passengers Association.
The facility was first experimented in Chennai and Mumbai followed by the Thiruvananthapuram division in April last.
Passengers can download the application on their smart mobile from Google Play or App or Microsoft depending on the operating system and avail unreserved tickets using R Wallet (Railway Wallet), an e-payment mode of Railways with no service charges. Once the passenger avails the facility, the image of the ticket can be downloaded on the phone.
The image is non-transferable and linked to the IMEI of smartphone from which the ticket is taken, and can be shown to the travelling ticket examiner.