In another milestone towards paperless and cashless ticketing, the UTS app of the Indian Railways has crossed 10 lakh subscribers. Developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the app allows users to book unreserved tickets for all trains in India.
In Mumbai, Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) have conducted dedicated drives to popularise the app among commuters. While the app has been steadily gaining popularity in the city, WR and CR want the subscriber base to expand further, particularly after the introduction of booking via QR code in February.
According to WR, a 10-day drive it conducted earlier this month resulted in a 220% increase in daily users as compared to the average in April 2017-March 2018. “We will now approach government and corporate offices to popularise the app,” Aarti Parihar, senior divisional commercial manager (Mumbai), WR, said.
CR had also conducted a drive in May and set up a self-ticketing zone at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus, with the QR code displayed prominently. In May, 3.91 lakh tickets were booked throught the app on CR and 2.68 lakh tickets on WR. Railway officials said, however, that app bookings account for only around 2% and 1.2% in CR and WR respectively.
Simpler process
Uday Bobhate, general manager, CRIS, said integrating the QR code into the app has simplified the ticketing process. “Initially, we received a lot of complaints that the app was not detecting the station they were at. This was because we had geo-fenced station areas and tracks to ensure that commuters do not book tickets on the go,” he said.
To rectify this, CRIS decided to create a unique QR code for each station, which the app would scan and detect the home station. Commuters then need to feed in the destination station. “At present, our data shows around 700 CR tickets and 500 WR tickets are booked using the QR code every day. The rest still use GPS,” Mr. Bobhate said. Both CR and WR are putting up QR codes at stations and ensuring they are displayed prominently.
Mr. Bobhate said plans were under way to introduce paperless ticketing for long-distance CR trains.