Aiming to reduce heavy rush on ticket counters Indian Railway is all set to install Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (ATVM) at Bokaro Railway station which might start working in next fifteen days, informed AK Choudhary Senior DCM of Adra Division of SE Railway.Besides Bokaro, ATVM will also be installed at Adra, Purulia, Bankura, Barnpur and Vishnupur to provide ease of ticketing, reduce congestion at ticket counters, he informed.
This would be touchscreen based ticketing kiosk operated using the smart card for unreserved tickets; allow cashless transactions where passengers can purchase unreserved tickets on the authority of smart card on which they get few amounts as cash back or bonus, he said. The passengers simply have to insert their ‘smart card’ into the machine and the ticket will be printed within a moment, he said. Anyone can purchase smart card, there would be a security deposit for the card which can be recharged even form the ticket counters. For tickets, the smart card has to be placed in the slot of AVTM and the passenger has to select the starting and destinations stations along with rout using the touchscreen. As soon as the ticket is issued the charge is debited for his smart card, informed and expert from the railway.
“The ATVM is capable of issuing almost all types of tickets, including the platform tickets too,” added Choudhary. The cancellation of ATVM’s tickets would be handled manually as per existing refund rules, he said. Recently, Indian railway has introduced Unreserved Mobile Ticketing (UTS on Mobile) with a view to promoting Cashless transactions (Digital payment), Contactless ticketing (no need to physically visit the point of sale) and Customer convenience and experience.
In July this year, the Adra division of South Eastern Railway also launched a mobile application ‘UTS’ to help passengers book an unreserved ticket, cashless and without waiting in long queues at railway stations. This UTS app is s developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), a society set up by the ministry of railways to look after information system of the Railways, he said.
