CHENNAI: Taking the paperless train ticket travel to the next level, the Southern Railway has decided to allow the use of the Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) mobile ticketing application at the station premises. This means that after entering into the railway station premises such as waiting halls and nearby locations of ticket counters, passengers will be able to book the paperless ticket through UTS, the Global Positioning System (GPS)-based application.
To buy the paperless tickets, passengers have to install the UTS app in GPS-enabled Android or Windows Smartphones. After signing up into the account, the user can book tickets with pre-loaded funds in railway wallet.
Currently, the users are not allowed to book tickets within 15 meters’ distance from the railway track and ticket counters and have to be present within the 5-km radius of station from where they board the trains.
The geo-fencing is demarcated in the applications to prevent the usage of mobile application by passengers for ticketless travel. With the increasing patronage for usage of paperless tickets, the Southern Railway has decided to remove the geo-fencing from the applications enabling the passengers to use the ticket applications at the railway stations, said official sources.
The rail passengers will have paperless ticketing system called Book, Activate and Travel (BAAT). “The mobile application will have no effect of geo-fencing and the passenger will be able to book ticket anywhere. However, the user will get only dummy ticket,” said a senior official.
The dummy ticket should get activated from the predefined area called activation zone at railway stations with the help of wi-fi facility. “The predefined area includes places near ticket counters, verandah, waiting halls and places covered under Wi-Fi in the station,” explained the officer, adding that in such cases electronic ticket is considered valid and one need not take a print-out of UTS ticket. The tickets will be ready in a few seconds at the station premises, he said. The officer added that the move would provide huge relief to the passengers during rush hour as passengers will be able to book tickets in a few seconds at the station premises.
The UTS mobile applications, introduced in April 2015 with paper ticket and paperless ticket options, is being used at 128 stations in the Southern Railway. While the paperless ticketing facility is being introduced in Chennai suburban sections, passengers have to take the printout of the tickets booked thorough the applications in the rest of the zone.“The facility is to be introduced in Chennai Central soon and subsequently in more stations,” added the officer.