Mumbai : The suburban railway commuters may soon be able to travel with merely an image of railway ticket in their mobile phones. Taking the recently introduced mobile ticketing a step forwards, the railways are all set to conduct trials wherein a commuter need not take a print out of the suburban ticket purchased from his cell phone and instead travel with a copy of the ticket in their cell phone.
At present, the commuter are expected to type in the One Time Password (OTP) issued on their mobile phones along with their mobile phones at the Automatic Ticket Vending Machine (ATVM)to get their suburban tickets after booking it from their cell phones. The printing of the tickets at the ATVMs is the major cause for the mobile ticketing not being readily adopted by the suburban commuters. A senior railway official said, “The intention is to make sure that ticketing is hassle free and the commuter does not have to wait at the ATVM for getting the print out of the tickets.”
The trials with the improved technology in mobile ticketing will be conducted within a week between Chennai Central and Tambaram wherein the commuter will simply get a copy of the ticket on their mobile phones and they can travel using it without getting a print out of the same. The ticket examiners will be given a handheld device to check the authenticity of these tickets. The handheld terminus will scan these tickets and differentiate the original from the fake tickets. Following the successful trials of this improved technology in Chennai the same will be adopted in Mumbai.
