🔊 Take a moment and listen

Satya Prakash
Additional Member (Tourism & Catering); Additional
Member(IT), Railway Board, Indian Railways

“Information Technology has brought immense benefit to millions of people who use Indian Railways for transportation and movement of goods. Ticketing has been taken to the doorstep of the customers. e-Ticketing is providing relief from long queues at the reservation offices,” says Satya Prakash

During the last few years we have seen lot of innovations happening in the area of ICT. What is your view of the ICT solutions that are being implemented by the Indian Railways?
Indian Railways has played a pioneering role in adoption of ICT for better delivery of service to the common citizens. Customer interfacing applications such as the Passenger Reservation System (PRS), Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS), National Train Enquiry System (NTES), and Freight Operation Information System (FOIS) etc., have been introduced with access to information through the websites on the Internet and through mobile phones. Further expansion of these projects in terms of geographical expansion and in terms of functionalities is planned and is likely to happen over the next few years. Various IT projects have been implemented for improving the efficiency and informationkeeping on the Indian Railways such as Control Office Application (COA), Crew Management System (CMS), Rates Branch Software (RBS), e-Procurement system (IREPS). Projects for maintenance of assets such as Track Management System, Integrated Coach Management System, Workshop Information System (WISE) are in advanced stage of implementation while some other such projects such as Freight Management Module(FMM), Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) of wagons for accurate accountal of wagons, Loco shed Management System (LMS) are being developed.

Large amount of revenues that the Indian Railways is able to generate comes through the movement of freight. Tell us about the ICT initiatives that are being taken to ensure that there is more transparency and efficiency in freight movement department.
Freight Operation Information System (FOIS) has been implemented on Indian Railways for management of freight trains movement and the associated commercial activities. Some of the main features of the system are:
a. Implemented in two modules – Rake Management System (RMS) for handling the train operations and Terminal Management System (TMS) for commercial processes of goods traffic have been implemented.
b. Reporting and Monitoring equipments have been commissioned at more than 2000 locations.
c. Provides information about congested terminals as well as congested routes thus wagons can be diverted to non-congested destinations or moved through non-congested routes.
d. Enables monitoring of ‘Maintenance schedules’ of the locomotives on goods trains, which enables their efficient utilization and planning for their maintenance in advance.
e. Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) of wagons for accurate accountal of wagons. A pilot project on 500 wagons was successfully carried out. Further expansion to cover 20,000 wagons has been sanctioned.
f. Rake Allotment System: Applications for allotment of empty wagons for Coal and Iron-ore loading have been started on pilot basis.

Lot of ICT implementation can be done to bring about improvement in the amenities that are being provided to the passengers in the railway stations. Please tell us about it.
ICT has been adopted on large scale for enabling convenient ticketing for passengers. The Passenger Reservation System and Unreserved Ticketing System have enabled advance booking of tickets for reserved and unreserved accommodation on passenger carrying trains. These projects have been expanded geographically to provide convenient and hassle-free ticketing at stations and some other convenient locations such as Post Offices, Municipal offices, District Collector’s offices, Schools, Colleges and Courts in towns and cities where Railways did not have presence of their own. The services of such organisations have also been utilised in cities where the railway facilities were felt to be inadequate. Further for reduction in queues for unreserved ticketing at stations approximately 1000 Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs) have been deployed across stations in and around major cities. Further approximately 1200 more are under procurement while 3600 more are planned for implementation.
ICT has been utilised to reduce pressure on the passenger amenities at the stations. The e-Ticketing through the internet has been started by IRCTC and it now handles approximately 45 percent of booking of reserved tickets. Seven Mobile Ticketing Vans have also been deployed in some cities (Delhi, Kolkata, Jaipur, Vapi, Anand, and Solapur) for taking ticketing to the doorstep of the customers. These Mobile ticketing Vans follow a predeclared itinerary and halt at select points in the urban and rural areas from where people can buy reserved tickets. Further 20 such Mobile ticketing Vans are being planned to be deployed all across the country.

Recently Indian Railways launched the initiative for booking tickets by SMS. What kind of response is this service seeing from the passengers? What other SMS based services are you planning to launch?
The booking of tickets by SMS was launched by IRCTC with the help of four service providers. On an average approximately 250 tickets/ day are being booked through this system. We expect it to increase as the awareness, about the facility, increases in the general public. Indian Railways has also planned to provide information to the passengers whenever the status of the waitlisted ticket changes.

Be a part of Elets Collaborative Initiatives. Join Us for Upcoming Events and explore business opportunities. Like us on Facebook , connect with us on LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter, Instagram.