In an effort to save the Mumbaikars’ trouble of waiting in long queues to purchase tickets, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu has launched a Mobile App for paperless unreserved tickets for 35 lakh commuters using the Western Railway’s suburban section in the metropolis.Undertaken under the Centre’s ‘Digital India’ programme, the Mobile App for Paperless Unreserved Tickets on Mumbai Suburban section was launched through video-conferencing from Rail Bhavan, New Delhi.
Initially, the Mobile App is being made available for 3.5 million commuters using the Western Railway’s suburban system between Churchgate and Dahanu Road. The Railway Ministry plans to introduce the mobile App for four million commuters travelling by the Main and Harbour sections of Central Railway Suburban Railway, within next two months.
The mobile phone has been developed as part of the ‘Operation Five Minutes’ initiative announced by Prabhu in his Railway budget for 2015-16 presented early this year. The initiative, under which the unreserved tickets can be booked using smart phones, has been brought out to improve access and availability of unreserved tickets.
Introduced by the Railways, the new mobile phone App is aimed at implementing the concept of Paperless Unreserved Ticketing through mobile phones, in a big way “Under this mobile application ‘UTS on mobile’ technology developed both for Android and Windows platform, user can download “App” from Google Play Store or Window Store. The application not only eliminates the inconvenience for commuters of having to wait in queues to purchase tickets, but also reduces the use of paper for printing tickets,” a Western Railway spokesperson said.
The ‘UTS on mobile’ application was earlier introduced in Mumbai for suburban journey tickets, but the ticket printout was still required. Now, taking a step ahead, the paperless ticket has been introduced.With the new application, the need to go to an ATVM to print the ticket is done away with. Instead the passengers can carry the ticket on the mobile as an image.