CHENNAI: Soon, travel ticket examiners (TTEs) manning premier trains will get hand-held terminals (HHT) to carry out the ticket checking and allotment of seats, which is now carried out with the help of reservation charts. The upgradation of ticket checking exercise from paper reservation charts to electronic device will make vacant berths allocation for onboard rail passengers and transfer of seats to remote location stations an automatic process in the Railways, said official sources.
Initially, the Southern Railway has decided to introduce the hand-held devices for TTEs of Chennai-Mysuru and Chennai-Coimbatore Shatabdi Expresses in a few days. The zone received 20 devices last week. “The device will make the vacant berth allocation of train to RAC and wait-listed passengers automatic, reducing the manual interference by travel ticket examiners,” said a senior railway official.
The HHT has been linked with the server of reservation counters and IRCTC portal which would enable the train captain/superintendent to transfer the vacant berths to next remote location station for current booking, thereby optimizing the utilisation of the berths. For example, Warangal is a remote location station for the Chennai-Hazrt Nizzamudin Rajdhani Express.
The trains leaves Chennai at 6 am and is scheduled to reach Warangal at 2.40 pm on the same day. Presently, the final chart for the Rajdhani Express is being prepared the previous day of the departure and vacant berths are transferred to the Warangal station, which will be available for booking till 2.10 pm on the day of departure.
“Once the HHT is introduced, the seats/berths, which are booked beyond Warangal and not occupied by reserved passengers from Chennai, can be transferred to Warangal for current booking. This means, when a passenger, who has booked the ticket between Chennai and New Delhi, fails to turn up in Chennai, the ticket will be made available for booking from Warangal to New Delhi,” explained the officer.
However, during initial months, the travel ticket examiners have been asked to maintain extreme cautions while marking ‘not turn up’ for reserved passengers. As for allocation of vacant berths, the Railway Board has stated the first available berths will be allocated to RAC tickets followed by partially confirmed wait-listed tickets. The hand-held device will also enable the train superintendent to know the total vacant berth in the train, which would enable him to allow the open ticket passengers en route.
Tech-savvy
‘No camphor on trains’
Chennai: It’s Sabarimala season and trains heading to Kerala are often filled with the Ayyappa devotees. But the Southern Railway has issue a directive to them: Leave camphors at home. It is to be recalled that a group of Ayyappa devotees travelling in the Hyderabad-Kollam special train on December 20 performed poojas and lit camphors as the train was running near Coimbatore.
The fire spread and a bunch of clothes in the coach went up in flames. Alarmed by the think fumes, a few passengers alerted the railway authorities. The Government Railway Police and the Railway Protection Force inspected the coach and imposed a penalty on the passengers who lit camphors. Against this background, the SR has issued a warning that passengers carrying inflammable in trains is banned and violators will be booked