Book ticket on mobile, take print at stn kiosks

In a bid to improve the demand for mobile ticketing, both the Central Railways (CR) and Western Railways (WR) have installed a new facility called optical character reader (OCR) kiosks at railway stations. Twenty five OCRs each have been installed at Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Terminus (CSMT) and Churchgate and are expected to reduce queues at booking windows and ATVMs.

Commuters can now book tickets on the move using the UTS mobile app and pick the 'paper ticket' option. They will then receive an SMS with a booking ID and a three-line character code which commuters can display at the OCR kiosk for a print out of their ticket. However, a CR official said, "The machine won't read the message if there is crack on the screen, there is dust or held in your hand." If the kiosk is unable to read the character code then commuters can pick the manual option and print the ticket by entering the booking ID and mobile number in the kiosk. Booking tickets through this process does not require GPS connectivity on the user's phone, said officials.

"Such a mechanism is in place for ticketing purposes for the first time across Indian Railways," said a WR official.

OCR kiosks have been installed at Churchgate, Dadar, Bandra, Andheri and Borivali stations by WR. The CR is installing them at CSMT, Ghatkopar, Thane, Dombivli and Kalyan stations.

The concept of mobile ticketing for local trains has remained a failure so far. On an average, less than 1 per cent of the total 76 lakh daily commuters use mobile ticketing. This is the reason the Railways decided to bring in some improvisation in the UTS app. Recently they also added the option of booking tickets for AC local through the app.