Palakkad Division of Southern Railway on Wednesday began a pilot project of handheld terminals (HHT) for travelling ticket examiners (TTEs) that replace paper reservation charts in their hands, ensure transparency of allotment of vacant berths to waitlisted passengers and other advantages.
Following directions from the Railway Ministry, Southern Railway has instructed its six Divisions to manage 24 long-distance trains with HHTs and identified Train Nos. 12601/602 Chennai Central-Mangaluru Central Superfast Mail for the pilot in Palakkad Division.
Tablets loaded with reservation charts and having SIM cards were provided to TTEs instead of paper charts to check tickets, update vacant berths, etc.
Palakkad Divisional Railway Manager Trilok Kothari told The Hindu that reservation charts once prepared before four hours of the journey would not get updated under the conventional method.
Passengers on RAC (Reservation Against Cancellation) or on the waitlist would not know berth vacancy if any confirmed passenger did not board the train or if unreserved berths were still available once the journey commenced. They had to depend on the TTE for berth allotment.
The TTE carrying conventional paper chart and marking vacant berths, had the discretion to allot vacant berths to any passenger.
However, with HHTs replacing the paper charts, the TTE has to mark vacant berth/s through the gadget thereby updating the chart status real-time on the Centre for Railway Information (CRIS) servers that manage passenger reservation system, Mr. Kothari said.
If there was waitlist for the particular train at the next station, an alert would go to passengers in the order of seniority confirming their tickets. If there was no waitlist, vacancy would be shown at the current booking counter enabling passengers to buy confirmed tickets across-the-counter, he said.
The DRM said this also would help a passenger who did not travel despite having a confirmed ticket to claim refund. While filing ticket deposit receipt (TDR) he or she need not provide chart confirmation at the originating station since vacancy of the berth was updated on the system already.
Another benefit of HHTs would be savings on paper and printing thereby contributing a little towards environment conservation. TTEs were being trained in batches, Mr. Kothari added.
As Mangaluru Central-Chennai Central Superfast Mail was ready to pull out of Mangaluru Central on July 20, TTEs managing the Train with HHTs appeared confident of handling the equipment with ease. A team of senior TTEs from the headquarters too accompanied them for guidance.
