Now, rail travellers have to get used to ‘checking’ their berths/seats on their mobile phones as Railways plans to stop the practice of pasting charts on train coaches in all major stations. The Railway Board (RB) has issued an order (a copy of which is available with DT Next) to this effect to all zonal railways on Wednesday.
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Chennai:
Shelly Srivatsava, Director (Passenger marketing), Railway Board, ordered (commercial circular no 10 of 2018) the principal chief commercial managers of all zonal railways to “discontinue pasting of reservation charts on reserved coaches of trains” at all A1, A and B category of stations on a pilot basis for six months from March 1, 2018. Most major stations in Tamil Nadu and Kerala would fall under one of the three categories.
The decision was taken based on the feedback received from Chennai Central, Bombay Central, New Delhi, Hazrat Nizamuddin, Howrah and Sealdah stations, where pasting of reservation charts on coaches was stopped on an experimental basis three months ago. However, physical and digital charts at platforms would continue.
A senior Southern Railway (SR) official who confirmed the receipt of the order told this paper that they have been experimenting it at Chennai Central and Egmore stations and the feedback is positive. The RB circular, which has advised the principal CCMs to stop displaying physical reservation charts wherever digital charts were available and functioning properly, were asked to send feedback on the pilot project with detailed comments in three months to take a final decision on extending the scheme to all stations.
Meanwhile, Southern Railway said on Wednesday that the total number of passengers using the dedicated UTS mobile application facility for booking tickets in the city division crossed the one million mark as of January.
GOING PAPERLESS
- Based on feedback, the scheme has now been extended to A1, A and B category stations on experimental basis.
- Passengers would have to either check with the chart on platforms or the details sent to their designated mobile number or details available on the ticket.
- Chennai Central, Egmore, Madurai, Coimbatore and Ernakulam come under A1 category of stations.
- Thoothukudi, Tirunelveli, Salem, Tirupur, Erode, Kozhikode, Shornur and Tambaram will fall under the other two categories of stations.
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