Users of the mobile ticketing system need to have their paperless tickets visible on their phone screens before commencing their journey, or they would be considered travelling ticketless.
Confirming the development, a senior Central Railway (CR) official said if passengers are unable to show their paperless tickets to the TTE (Train Ticket Examiner) due to mobile battery draining out or any other reason, they would be treated just as other passengers and fined for ticketless travel.
Meanwhile, as a resolution to a long-pending complaint from mobile ticket users, if money is deducted but the system fails to book the ticket, money would be refunded into the passenger’s account within a week.
A senior ticket checker said that on an average three to four passengers caught without paperless tickets every day give the excuse that money was deducted from their account but the ticket was not booked.
As per data, over 12% local CR commuters opt for mobile ticketing which is 265% more than Jan 2022; there has been an incremental growth since April 2022. Keeping in mind this overwhelming response, the railway authorities have enabled several new features in the UTS App. Since Jan 19, First Class and AC Local commuters can book up to four passengers on a single ticket. The App is also available in Marathi language besides Hindi and English. Officials said that these new UTS App features are attracting more suburban passengers.
In Dec 2022, 1.35 crore passengers were using mobile ticketing (11.61% of total bookings), while in April that year 74.39 lakh were using it. In Jan 2022, though, 37.14 lakh were using digital tickets.
