Mumbai : Union Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu on Wednesday launched a new mobile ticketing app that will facilitate hassle-free and paperless travel for 35 lakh daily suburban commuters using the Western Railway.
The new facility will allow the commuters to book suburban ticket using the ‘UTS’ mobile application and travel with an image of their ticket in their mobile phone itself.
The railway officials believe that the improved version of the mobile application will be a blessing for the commuters as they will not have to stand in a queue to get the printout of the ticket.
Until now, the commuter, after booking a suburban ticket on their cell phone, were made to get a printout of the same from the Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (ATVM). But now the image of the ticket on the mobile phone will suffice.
However, there is a catch. The tickets cannot be booked through the application if the commuter is on the railway premises. To book a ticket the commuter will have to maintain a minimum distance of 30 meters from the railway premises and he should not be more than 2 km away.
To ensure that there are no malpractices in the system, the e-tickets will have a different colour scheme each day. There will also be a QR code attached to the ticket which will allow the ticket examiner to examine the source of the ticket and the time it was issued, using a hand held terminal.
A senior railway official said, “The facility of clicking a screen shot of the image and sending it across has been disabled in the system. The ticket cannot be forwarded in the form of message as well.”
The application has not been launched yet for android and window phones. The commuter will be able to recharge their ‘R Wallet’ with an amount ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 5000.
