Coming soon: Ticket vending devices in station parking lots

CHENNAI: Suburban commuters in the Southern Railway zone will no longer have to sweat it out in queues or complain about tickets running out. Much like the vendor in a movie hall who dishes out hot popcorn from a portable machine on his hip, a person will soon dispense tickets in parking lots/shopping complexes near stations.

Southern Railway has come up with a Portable Unreserved Ticketing System (P-UTS) machine with all the features of a ticket window — a screen, a ticket roll, a thermal printer and the railway software. Packed in a briefcase, it will be issued to an agent who will, on the move, issue tickets. The 9kg device, which can be carried around by one person and can be plugged and played in any place, is being marketed as an ‘out of the box’ solution for a mela or festival, similar to a popcorn vendor.

The inexpensive innovation has been thought up by officials in Southern Railway to resolve the twin problems of fading railway press-issued cardboard tickets and tickets running out at smaller stations, known in railway parlance as halt stations. There are 166 halt stations across Tamil Nadu and Kerala of which 30 including Annanur, near Avadi, and Royapuram are in Chennai division. A halt agent at these stations issues the pre-printed cardboard tickets over which several agitations by passengers have erupted as they run out quickly.

Southern Railway has now written to the Railway Board asking permission to conduct trials for P-UTS across 12 stations. The device, if approved, will be used on the suburban route in Chennai divisions and on the non-suburban route in other divisions — all in the unreserved category. “The P-UTS can give complete portability, allowing the issuance of UTS tickets from any non-networked location. It has a simple plug and play mode with fast printing. Apart from the benefits to passengers, there will be huge savings on printer ink, cartridges and moving parts of printers,” said a senior officer.

Aware that around 92% of Southern Railway’s passengers are in the unreserved segment, officials have identified the challenges in procuring tickets and have been continuously trying to think of solutions which can make ticket procurement easier. Close to 3% of passengers now use mobile ticketing, but the number isn’t increasing as expected.

P-UTS will also bring the ticketing system to halt stations within the ambit of the railway software which will provide real-time data on the increase or decrease in the number of commuters at a station. This can then be used to improve the passenger amenities at the station, sources said.