Southern Railway has distributed 101 hand-held terminals (HHTs) to the Tiruchi Railway Division for use by its onboard ticket checking staff to enable quick, real time and effective means of ticket checking.
The HHTs were being used by the Travelling Ticket Examiners for ticket checking in popular trains including Chennai Egmore - Tiruchi - Chennai Egmore Rockfort expresses and Chennai Egmore - Madurai - Chennai Egmore Tejas expresses.
This paperless facility would help TTEs to get real-time information about accommodation falling enroute and enable them to book tickets online in trains that have remote location facility. Remote location facility in a train refers to an arrangement where a portion of seats are earmarked for intermediate stoppages/ stations falling in the route of the train.
A press release from Tiruchi Division on Monday said Southern Railway had been allotted a total of 857 HHTs which were distributed to Chennai, Tiruchi, Madurai, Thiruvananthapuram, Palakkad and Salem railway divisions. HHTs would be introduced in more trains in a phased manner.
The introduction of HHTs was an eco-friendly move as it would replace paper charts presently used by TTEs on board trains. Passengers would get real-time information about vacant berths at stations enroute. The facility would enable faster refund process as real-time data of vacancy position and occupancy was synced with PRS software, the release further said.
