One of the oldest trains on the Indian Railway, the Deccan Queen Express, will have a feature called 'conversations on the move'. The Central Railway has begun placing QR Codes inside each coach that needs to be scanned by passengers. It will enable them to know about the history of the train and route, access to information about popular food and even online games.
Starting this month, the Central Railway introduced this inside Deccan Queen Express that is meant to enhance the experience of passengers’ journey. They have appointed a contractor under the non-fare revenue for this. “We are trying to provide world-class conversational engagement solutions, intuitive and engaging experience during travel. In the pipeline there are 10 more express trains in which this facility will be provided,” said Shivaji Sutar, Chief PRO, Central Railway.
Explaining its working, a traveller on the Deccan Queen Express needs to scan the QR code placed in each bay area next to the seats. Once a passenger scans the QR code, they get access to travel and infotainment via an intelligent chatbot. Passengers can access more details about the journey, especially in-depth details on some of the important stations on the route.
“These details include places to visit, shopping, meals to try, clothing, souvenirs and many more. It will have general knowledge and interesting quizzes too for people to enjoy. For the gaming aficionados, exciting games will keep them engrossed,” said a CR official. There will also be options for reading comics and mythological stories using this app. The chatbot can engage with the passenger in multiple languages that are supported by Google Translate.
The CR authorities have already replaced the conventional coaches of the CSMT-Pune Deccan Queen Express – which celebrates its anniversary on June 1 – with Linke Hofmann Busch (LHB) design coaches. The total number of coaches will be reduced from the earlier 17 to 16. The revised composition of the train will be four AC chair car, eight-second class chair car, one vista dome coach, one AC dining car, a guard cum brake van and a generator car.
The existing dining car has a capacity of table service for 32 passengers which will be upgraded to a seating capacity of 40 in the new dining car coach. It will have a modern pantry and kitchen facilities such as a microwave oven, deep freezer and toaster machine. Currently, this train has a total seating capacity of 1417 passengers.
