Rajdhani, Shatabdi trains to have paperless ticketing system

NEW DELHI: Stepping up efforts to reduce usage of paper, Railways has decided to introduce paperless mobile ticketing system in premium trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi services.

Currently, the paperless ticketing system is operational in unreserved ticketing for commuters in Egmore and Tambram suburban section in Chennai on a pilot basis.

"Our aim is to extend the paperless ticketing system in both reserved and unreserved segment in phases. While the system is at present operational in a suburban section in Chennai, we will cover all suburban services soon and then it will be extended to reserved segment also," Railway Board Member (Traffic) Ajay Shukla said here today.

He said passengers of the premier trains like Rajdhani and Shatabdi will be the first to have this paperless mobile ticketing facility.

This system is available through a mobile application developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems ( CRIS), Railways' software wing.

The reason for choosing Rajdhani and Shatabdi trains first for paperless ticketing system is that all passengers of premier trains are likely to have mobile phones, he said.

Shukla said, however, before introducing the system in the reserved ticketing segment, refund rules will be rationalised so that passenger will not have any problem in getting their money back if a ticket is being cancelled.

Railways consume about 600 tonnes paper for printing tickets and reservation charts in a year. The national transporter expect to earn carbon credit, if printing of tickets is eliminated completely.

Railways is also planning to launch multi-lingual portals for reservation of tickets. "Currently, it is in English and Hindi and we want the portals to be in all regional languages," he said.

In order to accommodate more passengers, Shukla said the number of coaches of certain popular trains will be increased to 24.