BHUBANESWAR:IN a major boost for lakhs of railway commuters facing hassles in booking tickets, the East Coast Railway on Wednesday launched a mobile application, unreserved ticketing system (UTS). The passengers can use the app to purchase unreserved tickets at the tap of a smartphone and avoid the trouble of standing in long queues.
Launching the UTS mobile app at Rail Sadan here, East Coast Railway General Manager Umesh Singh said a passenger wishing to get an unreserved ticket has to stay between 20 metres to 2 kms from the station for the app to function properly.
The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store, Windows and Apple Stores. The user can sign-up for registration to create R-Wallet where ticket booking can be done with a minimum recharge value of `100 and can have a maximum wallet balance of `10,000. In an added incentive, the passengers will soon be given 5 per cent bonus if they book through R-wallet.
South Western Railway zone and the Southern Railway zone had earlier introduced the system in different phases, however East Coast Railway introduced it in all the stations under its jurisdiction in a single phase.
Principal Chief Commercial Manager Ajay Behera told mediapersons that a passenger can also get a platform ticket or season ticket on UTS and they also have an option in the app of ‘quick booking’ for travelling between stations under ECoR.
Railway authorities have used GPS technology for creating a virtual geographic boundary and enabling the software to trigger a response when a mobile user enters or leaves a particular area.However, no advance booking is allowed through the app, and once the tickets are generated, those cannot be cancelled. The tickets, which are non-editable, can be shown to the ticket collectors in the ‘show ticket’ option of the app. The bookings can be done by online payments and the journey should commence within three hours of purchase.
Deputy Chief Commercial Manager Debraj Nayak, Senior Deputy General Manager Hemant Kumar Dutta, Additional General Manager Rajeev Sharma, technical in-charge BK Murti and others were present at the launch. The app was developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems and Centre had sanctioned `87 crore for implementing the system across all the railway zones in the country.
Smart app
A passenger has to stay between 20 metres to 2 kms from the station
The app can be downloaded from Google Play Store, Windows and Apple Stores
The user can sign-up for registration to create R-Wallet
Ticket can be booked with a minimum recharge value of `100
The wallet can have a maximum balance of `10,000
A passenger can also get a platform ticket or season ticket on UTS