Railway apps that come in handy for travellers

Chennai: Train journeys that used to begin from buying a ticket waiting in long queues, arriving at the station, buying eatables, alighting the train and reaching your destination have now taken a digital turnaround with mobile applications (apps)  dominating human procedures at every level of journey.

“Every day on an average, 250 to 300 passengers are downloading the ‘Food on Track’ App in Southern Railway. The feedback we receive from passengers on this IRCTC app is encouraging as the delivery of food items to the train has always been punctual,” said S.Ganapathy, IT head, IRCTC, Southern Railway.

A few of them that has patronage of more than 500 passengers per day are as follows:

UTS  (Unreserved Ticketing System) App
The UTS App that could be downloaded in android and Windows-based platforms has facilities for a) Normal booking, b) Quick booking, c) Season tickets and d) Platform ticket booking. According to Southern railway sources, at least 1100 passengers on a daily basis download the App.
 
Centralized Public Grievance Redress and Monitoring System (CPGRAMS)
The objective of CPGRAMS is used to redress  complaints by various ministries/ departments/ government organisations the issues being raised by passengers.

The App that was introduced in April 2014 is an online web-enabled that facilitates online lodging and status tracking of grievances for citizens. A  passenger can lodge a complaint, mark a reminder and view the status.
 
Clean my Coach
The app that has been introduced in 43 divisions across the country is yet to be implemented in  Southern Railway. The facility that can be downloaded in android, windows-based phone and blackberry facilitates passengers to request for cleaning staff in the compartment. Over 3500 passengers have downloaded the App that was introduced on an experimental basis in South Western railways in a month’s time.

“The new Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) that was introduced last year has actually saved a lot of time and energy and has made ticket booking convenient as I need not travel five km and stand in a long queue,” said T..Rajagopalan, a 65-year old retired ICF employee.