In an effort to go completely paperless, the Indian Railways has created a mobile ticketing system for its unreserved seating. The app features a full workflow that allows mobile users to search for desired tickets and then to pay right in the app via the integrated mobile wallet.
This service was reminiscent of a hack created at THack Bangalore last year called PNR.me. The service was a mobile-only product that predicted the success rate of railway travelers seeking unreserved seats on a particular train journey.
This is important, as not all seats are reserved on Indian Railways, and those unreserved seats are generally much cheaper. This affordability leads to long queues of travelers waiting to purchase a ticket — and if the train they want sells out, they have to either go home or sleep in the train station to try again tomorrow. Understandably, this leads to quite the chaos during busy travel periods.
The official Indian Railways version goes one step further by allowing the traveler to pre-book a ticket exclusively on a mobile device. Right now, the app is available for Android and Windows, the most popular operating systems in the country. It was developed by Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) and is called utsonmobile.
The pilot program for paperless ticketing is limited to 15 stations in the suburban sections of Southern Railway, which means that there is still some time before this will expand nationally. Regardless, for a system widely seen as inefficient and difficult to navigate, the transition to mobile should increase capacity and passenger satisfaction for the nationally-run railway.
NB: Photo credit Dennis Jarvis/Flickr.