Mumbai: Soon, you may be able to book local ticket from home

MUMBAI: If all goes according to plan, commuters will be able to buy tickets of suburban local trains sitting in their homes or offices through railway Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) on the mobile app that was launched a few years ago but has not attained popularity.
The CR's new Divisional Railway Manager for Mumbai Division Rajnish Kumar Goyal had a preliminary meeting with Centre of Railway Information Systems (CRIS) officials.
Railway's UTSonmobile is a GPS-based app that uses geo-fencing to demarcate physical territory. Tickets can be booked only if the smartphone user is at least 30 metres away from tracks and within 2km of a requested boarding station. The system uses the phone's GPRS coordinates.
This was to ensure that people do not cheat the railways by buying tickets on seeing a TTE. Those who struggle to book tickets due to geo-fencing issues can click the QR code option on the app. This would help them get a hard copy of the ticket from any of the kiosks installed at station booking offices. Goyal, who took charge a few days ago, said, "I want to ensure that the app is further simplified so that its use increases and it helps in reducing crowding at the booking offices."
The CR feels that there is no harm in allowing people to book the tickets on the UTSonmobile app from their homes. The restrictions should be minimal so that people do not get put off and avoid using the app.
The Central Railway has 476 ATVMs, including 178 operated by facilitators and 336 booking windows but not all work smoothly. At present CR carries 38 lakh passengers which is almost 7 lakh less than the pre-pandemic figures Nearly 25 per cent of the tickets are booked via ATVM and 7 per cent via UTSonmobile app. The remainders are through booking windows.
Kurla resident Amey Naik said, "It is good that the railways wants to make the app simpler as there are people who are willing to buy tickets but avoid doing so seeing the rush at the ticket counters. There are also instances of ATVMs not working properly, which also leads to longer queues at other counters."
Goyal said that he will ask the CRIS to address the issue of commuters, who are not able to buy more than one ticket for travel by first class and AC train.
Rahul Nikam, a Thane resident, said, "They should not have put such restrictions in the first place. If you bring in technology to make things easier for people, you should try to popularise its use. Anyhow , it's better late than never."