Coupon vending machines to stay

Despite the railway board’s order to phase out coupon vending machines, which were introduced couple of years ago in a bid to cut queues at ticket counters, the Western Railway (WR), it seems, will carry on with the commuter-friendly ticketing system after public demand.

In fact, the WR and the IT wing of the railways are working on ways to integrate the sale of coupons into ticketing server so that they can be accounted for transactions and merged with the national ticketing system. If this works out, it would be a boon for seven million local train commuters, majority of which use ticket coupons for their convenience.

The railway board had asked Mumbai suburban railways to phase out coupon machines from March 2012, as the coupon validating machine network is not linked to the national server. However, following public opposition, they have been extended by a year.

The only fear was that there could be fraudulent transactions and hence the railway board had asked railways to popularise smart cards.

But coupons are more popular with the commuters, as they are available in varying denominations and can be easily punched or stamped and can be used by even illiterate commuters. Nearly 10% of the total ticket sales on the Central Railway and 18% on the WR come from coupons.

WR officials said they were approaching the Centre for Railway Information Systems to work on documenting and integrating the sale of coupon booklets as a method to integrate it with the server. 

This, even as a WR spokesperson denied it, saying they were working out schemes to promote the smart card sale instead.

Even as many smart card machines in need of maintenance lie non-functional, railway officials don’t want to believe it and ignore complaints.

“Does the railway board know that these machines are not maintained 24X7 by local railways?’’ a city commuter asked.