Unreserved rail tickets through SMS soon

Unreserved railway tickets, which are bought by 16 million passengers daily in India, will soon be available through cell phones, thanks to a major IT initiative of Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).

''We have developed the software for providing unreserved tickets through SMS on cell phones. We are in talks with various service providers and hope to make it a reality soon,'' CRIS general manager (R&D) R Badri Narayan said.

Dr Narayan said talks were in an advanced stage with companies like Oxigen (Gurgaon, Haryana) and M-Chek (Bangalore). ''We are fully prepared with the software; only certain security matters have to be taken care of to make the system glitch-free before it is launched.''

The CRIS official also announced that the IT-based unreserved Ticketing System (UTS), which began six years ago as a pilot project to dispense unreserved tickets through a wider and universal access to information technology, would be extended to 6,275 stations across the country with 21,000 points of sale.

Under the UTS, 165 stations were covered in 2005, which has now been extended to 1,300 stations with 3,700 points of sale.

''By March 2010, all the 6,275 stations across the country will be covered under the UTS, which will entail an expenditure of Rs 1,300 crore (Rs 13 billion),'' he pointed out.

Dr Narayan said a million reserved railway tickets are sold daily through the Passenger Reservation System (PRS) while 16 million passengers buy unreserved tickets.

''Going by the sheer number, the daily commuter constitutes the most significant part of the market profile, and CRIS found it imperative to provide

unreserved tickets to them in a manner that was not cumbersome and also free from corruption.'' He said the UTS has resulted in shorter queues as a single transaction takes less than 20 seconds and every counter caters to every customer. Also, tickets can be booked in advance and four passengers can be booked on a single ticket.

Pointing out that the railways earn Rs 20 crore (Rs 200 million) from the UTS, he said 60 per cent of the unreserved tickets had already come under its purview.

About the printed card tickets, he said there were a number of problems, including separate counters for different destinations and trains and standing in long queues for hours. Further, counters are closed for shift change, which forces passengers to travel ticketless. There are also problems of manual corrections in fares and fraudulent bookings.

Dr Narayan said inefficient delivery systems, elaborate procedures required for indenting, printing and stocking of tickets and regime of checks and inspections required to tackle illegal practices at the counter and harassment of passengers on train, had emerged as key concerns.

''We have solved all these problems under the IT-based UTS, which has emerged as a user-friendly, reliable and sustainable delivery system. More importantly, it is a 24X7 system,'' he added.

Dr Narayan said Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs), an offshoot of the UTS, were introduced in October last year at Mumbai and in Chennai this year. ''The system will be extended to Delhi, Secunderabad and Kolkata stations within next 2-3 months, which will allow passengers to buy unreserved tickets from these machines.''

UNI