Mumbai: Railway commuters will soon be able to book paperless unreserved tickets on long-distance passenger trains through the UTS mobile application. Until now, the app has allowed commuters to book tickets and season tickets for suburban trains. The Railways now plan to extend the service across all stations.
“We are working towards implementing this feature on the Central Railway (CR) and the Western Railway (WR). The new facility should most probably be available by September. Any ticket one would get on the counter, one should be able to buy on the app,” Uday Bobhate, general manager, Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), said.
He said a few zones, such as the Northern Railway, have already implemented the feature.
Mr. Bobhate said all railway stations in the country have been geofenced and if needed, the Railways will consider putting up QR codes. To curb ticketless travel, the app does not allow commuters to buy tickets on railway land or station premises.
However, after several complaints about the app not detecting the commuter’s location, CRIS developed a system in which each station in Mumbai is assigned a QR code.
More commuters have adopted the app after this. CR and the WR have also conducted dedicated drives to encourage the use of the app. In July, the app crossed the 10-lakh subscriber mark.
