Passengers travelling in general class to different places from Mangaluru Central and Mangaluru Junction railway stations are yet to give the thumbs-up for the unreserved ticketing mobile application — UTS on Mobile App of the Railways.
Despite having a major benefit of avoiding long queues at ticket counters thereby avoiding chances of missing trains in the last minute, the App was used by just 48,521 passengers out of 25.4 lakh who travelled during April-October 2019 from Mangaluru Central (1.91 % of total passengers). During the same period in 2018, only 8,604 passengers used the App out of 26 lakh general class travellers (0.33 %).
This is in stark contrast to the overall growth in the number of passengers using UTS on Mobile App in the entire Palakkad Division of the Southern Railway.
The number of passengers using UTS on Mobile App, that was 5.4 lakh (out of the total 2.3 crore passengers) in April-October 2018 substantially rose to 20.73 lakh (out of the total 2.39 crore passengers) in April-October 2019. The jump was spectacular in the recently commissioned Pollachi Junction Station, where 1.05 lakh passengers out of the 4.26 lakh passengers travelled used UTS on Mobile App during April-October 2019.
Besides helping avoid waiting in queues at ticket counters, the UTS on Mobile App, where one can buy unreserved journey tickets, platform tickets and season passes, offers multiple benefits to travellers. Upon downloading the App from Google Play Store and registering with one’s mobile number, the passenger has an option to store money in the Rail Wallet to get 5 % additional bonus on every recharge. One can also buy tickets through net banking/ cards/ UPI, say Railway officials.
While buying tickets through UTS on Mobile App, one should be within a 5-km radius of the journey starting station and beyond 25 m of the station/ track. The passenger cannot buy ticket either at the station or onboard a train because of geo-fencing. Also, capturing screenshot of tickets is disabled to prevent unauthorised transfer. The passenger has to show the ticket on the App when required by the ticket checking staff.
