The Hon’ble Minister of Railways inaugurated the UTS Mobile Ticketing services ( Unreserved Suburban Tickets ) on December 27th, 2014. UTS or the unreserved ticketing services were a promise by the Indian Railways in making the suburban rail commuting more convenient and trouble-free for the common passenger. 21 million people around the big cities in this country travel on a daily basis into and out of the city. The majority of them use the suburban railway system. In Mumbai, it is called the lifeblood of the city. The system is now operational and now can be used in the Mumbai and Chennai suburban railway systems.
The Registration Process –
First and foremost, those passengers, who would like to use this facility, would have to have a Smartphone. Currently, the smartphones with the Android operating system and the Windows operating systems offer the service. The other two main operating systems the ios and the Blackberry do not support the system. The logic behind that is that people, who use such a system, are generally not the ones who travel by suburban railways.
First, one will have to download the UTS mobile application from the application marketplace of the above two operating systems. The application has been built in-house by the CRIS, which stands for Centre for Railway Information Systems.
The registration can be done in two ways. The passenger can either do it from the mobile application itself or by using the website utsonmobile.indianrail.gov.in. In the registration process, the person will have to provide his or her mobile number, name, the city, the default booking train type, the class, the ticket type, the frequently travelled routes and the number of passengers.
The Railway Wallet –
The next thing that the passenger need to do is have a Railway wallet or as they are calling them R Wallet.
The railway wallet is the only method by which ticket can be purchased from the UTS mobile application. First and foremost, a passenger has to register himself or herself in the R wallet ecosystem. Then, they will have to link it to a mobile number. Initially, the railway wallet will show zero balance as one has not added any money to it.
The recharging process of the railway wallet is a very simple proposition. There are two ways of doing it. Either the passenger can approach the numerous UTS counters available in the suburban railway stations to recharge or he can visit the utsonmobile.indianrail.gov.in portal to recharge using a credit card, debit card or online banking system.
When a person is making a ticket booking, the application will check if there is enough balance in the r wallet to make the purchase. If there is, then it will make the booking, otherwise, it will prompt to recharge the R wallet. If one cancels the ticket, the amount deducted for the purchase of the ticket will be refunded to the R wallet.
The Train Travel –
After buying the tickets, one will need to carry the mobile phone with him while making the journey. Then when in the source station, the place from where one will start their journey, a passenger will have to locate an ATVM machine. These machines have been set up at all the stations to get printouts of the tickets booked via the mobile application. With this printout in your hand, you are ready to start your journey. Unfortunately, after taking a printout, you cannot cancel your journey.
The Advantages –
There are a number of advantages in using this system. Firstly, it is a much quicker process to book tickets, especially for the routes that you travel frequently. Next is that, one can book tickets for any suburban rail station! The third is that one can cancel a ticket if there is a change of plan. The fourth option is that the application maintains a log of the booked tickets so that you can rebook them quickly if you wish to, and finally, the application tracks your r wallet and tells you if you need to recharge it.
Indian Railways is a large network that caters to the tens of millions of customers every day. With innovations like UTS mobile ticketing service, the bond between the brand Railways and the passengers become a little better.