Operation Five Minutes

Minister of Railways Suresh Prabhakar Prabhu recently launched a mobile application for paperless unreserved ticketing. This is a pilot project covering 15 stations in Southern Railway and will be extended to entire country in phases. The facility allow the passenger to buy a ticket on the move and allow him or her to board the train with the ticket secured on his or her mobile phone, without any need for printing the ticket. The mobile application “utsonmobile” is available on Google Play Store or Window Store.

The application is rolled out as a pilot between Chennai Egmore & Tambaram suburban Section of Southern Railway covering 15 stations. The application provides necessary on-screen alerts to guide the passenger during the booking process. Payment for the ticket is done through the “Railway Wallet” feature in the app. After booking the ticket, the passenger will get the ticket confirmation screen which contains limited information of the ticket.

After the download, the user will get a registration ID number for creation of a railway e-wallet. In the meantime money for buying tickets will have to be loaded through the e-wallet mobile payment system either online or at a ticket counter at any station. Passengers have the option of topping up the e-wallet at ticket counters or on the IRCTC website using a credit or debit card. Besides booking tickets, one can even renew season tickets using the app, which will be a great help for commuters in the unreserved ticketing segment.

The paperless journey ticket will be stored in the local mobile application database in the encrypted form which cannot be tampered with. The passenger has to start the journey within 1 hour as per policy for suburban sections. Ticket booked in paperless mode cannot be cancelled in order to prevent claiming of refund after travel. For the purpose of ticket checking, in case of mobile in disconnected mode, it will be checked through QR Code.