The Southern Railway’s mobile ticket booking app, UTS, seems to be increasing its patronage base as more people are using it to purchase monthly season tickets or tickets for suburban travel daily.
Despite there still being complaints and suggestions to improve the app, the number of season tickets recorded on the app was 2,34,100 for July, an increase of about 35 per cent from the 1,86,250 booked in June, said officials of Southern Railway.
However, these figures do not indicate the number of season tickets bought by commuters, but rather the number of trips they made. For instance, a passenger with this ticket makes on an average 55 trips a month. So, the actual number of season tickets sold through the app would be around 4,200.
This number, according to sources, is not high considering that over 9 lakh commuters travel in the Chennai suburban network everyday.
Mass drive
To popularise the use of the app, the Southern Railway conducted a massive awareness drive at select stations on all sections — Chennai to Chengalpattu, Tiruvallur, Gummidipoondi and the Mass Rapid Transit System. Offering free WiFi, they encouraged commuters to download the app and book tickets. The mobile ticket booking app, UTS, developed by Centre for Rail Information Systems, continues to have several glitches, complain users. With the app yet to be made available on the iOS platform, users said that they were unable to transfer the balance amount when they change to a new handset or a new number.
Furthermore, some customers also have issues with the GPRS connectivity. Railway officials said that the feedback from commuters would be used to fine-tune the app
The services of the Department of Posts came in handy for Southern Railway as it reached out to residents via e-posts, that sends the message online to the delivery post office and printouts are taken there to deliver to the recipients.
E-posts are popular among customers who want to send greetings to political leaders and actors and are used by corporate firms to sends messages in bulk. A fee of Rs.10 is charged for each message. Last year, about 10,000 e-posts were delivered by post offices.
(With inputs from K. Lakshmi)
