If this becomes successful then it will surely ease the situation for Mumbaikars who are struggling to get Season Tickets and Daily single tickets at railway stations. The railways and Maharashtra government are working on linking the UTS App and the App/website on which one can generate Universal Pass by those who are fully vaccinated.
This will bring much respite as through mobile ticketing, people need not stand in a queue or end up arguing with the railway staff sitting on the other side of the ticket booking counter. This comes at a time when pre-Covid-19 the contribution of mobile ticketing was 5-7 per cent of the total tickets sold.
“We are working with the state government authorities towards linking our UTS App with the one where people generate Universal Pass. We are trying to create an interface between the two Apps. The whole idea is that when a passenger uses the UTS app to buy Season Tickets or Daily journey tickets; then the Maharashtra government’s app (where Universal Pass is accessible) will ‘shake hand’ with our app and cross-verify the details. This is still in a nascent stage,” explained a railway official on condition of anonymity.
This will certainly help people in generating Daily tickets or Season Passes much faster and easier. This will also promote use of mobile ticketing which surprisingly has received lukewarm response since the time it was launched more than 5-6 years ago. After the linkage, people who are fully vaccinated will simply have to download the Universal Pass and then the UTS app will allow them to buy suburban railway tickets.
At present, the UTS app, automatic ticket vending machines and Jan Sadharan Ticket Booking Seva (JTBS) aren’t available for issuing tickets. Both, Central and Western Railways are issuing daily tickets and season passes for monthly, quarterly and half-yearly at the ticket counters where one can see long queues. At present, the average daily ticket sold on CR and WR, since November 1, has been 2 lakhs. There are approximately 42-45 lakh people travelling every day.
