Mobile app for paperless tickets in Mumbai suburban

Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday launched a mobile ticketing app for unreserved tickets that will cover 35 stations between the 123 km long Churchgate -Dhauroad suburban section in Western Railway.
He also launched two other IT-based initiaves- a SMS destination alert service for premier trains and an e-ticketing portal in Hindi.
“We are committed to provide better facilities for passengers and today we are launching three services as part of our Budget committment, Prabhu said after launching the IT-based initiatives here.
The mobile ticketing application for unreserved tickets aims to facilitate a hassle free travel for lakhs of daily passengers in Mumbai.
Earlier, the mobile app for paperless unreserved ticketing system was introduced between Egmore and Tambram suburban sections in Chennai under Southern Railway zone on a trial basis in April.
Developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) “utsonmobile” – the paperless unreserved ticketing feature in mobile application aims to eliminate the need for printing of unreserved tickets.
The app, which is for both Android and Windows platforms, can be downloaded from Google Play Store or Windows Store by the user.
The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process.
Payment for the ticket is done through the “railway wallet” feature in the App. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get ticket confirmation screen, which will contain limited information about the ticket.
Prabhu hoped that by the end of the year all budget proposals will be implemented. “We have fullfilled many budget proposals and by the end of the year all will be implemented.”
Railways plan to extend the paperless service in suburban section in all metros.
More than one crore passenger travel daily in unreserved segment across the country and railways uses 1200 metric ton paper every year for printing unreserved tickets.
Passengers of Rajdhani and Duronto will get SMS alerts before arrival of their destinations between 11 PM and 7 AM.
Destination alert service will cover 35 Rajdhani and 19 Duronto trains. The service involves sending an SMS to a passenger 15 minutes before the train is expected to reach its destination.
Railways also launched e-ticketing portal in Hindi aiming at a large section of Hindi speaking population. Railways also plan to launch e-ticketing site in 15 regional languages thus making it a multi-lingual portal.