RailOne Shareable Season Ticket Facility: Passenger Photo And QR Code Verification Made Mandatory For Travel Validity

Mumbai: The RailOne app's new shareable season-ticket facility allows registered users to book tickets for family members and others, but the railway has made passenger identity verification central to the system. Under guidelines issued by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), only a ticket carrying the passenger's photograph and a readable QR code will be accepted as a valid travel document. Invoices, booking receipts and copies of UTS paper tickets will not suffice.

Minimum Age Criteria Fixed For Self Booking And Beneficiaries

The facility, introduced on September 2 with Railway Board approval, allows a registered user to book one season ticket for themselves and up to five additional season tickets for family members or others. Existing policy allowing multiple tickets for the Mumbai suburban area will continue. For self-booking, validity begins on the same day after successful geo-fencing verification. For Season tickets booked for others, validity begins from the next day of booking. The minimum age for self-booking is 18 years, while the beneficiary must be at least five years old.

The new arrangement is intended to make season-ticket travel more convenient, but it also changes what passengers must carry. A shareable season ticket can be carried as a printed copy or a PDF on a mobile device. However, the document must contain valid ticket details and the passenger's photograph, with both visible and embedded in the QR code. The guidelines specifically state that an invoice generated within the RailOne app, a booking receipt or a copy of a UTS paper ticket will not be accepted as a valid travel document.

The QR code will be the primary authentication payload, carrying essential digital ticket data and the embedded photograph. Passengers will be required to keep the ticket and QR code clear, intact and readable throughout the journey. If the QR code is damaged, altered, non-readable or tampered with, the ticket's authenticity cannot be established. Such passengers will be treated as travelling without a valid ticket and penalised under applicable Railway Rules for invalid tickets.

The guidelines also require all ticket checking staff, including train-checking staff, station staff and checking squads, to use Hand Held Terminals (HHTs) running the updated application that supports QR scanning for shareable season tickets. TTEs can conduct a quick visual match of the photograph and, where necessary, scan the QR code to cross-check the embedded photograph with the visible image and passenger details.

CRIS has directed zonal railways to sensitise, educate and train ticket checking staff on the new verification process at the earliest. The move is expected to make season-ticket booking more flexible while ensuring that the person using the ticket can be verified through the prescribed digital and visual checks.

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