Brands to get a ticket to ride on Indian Railways

National carrier to float bids for vinyl-wrapped ads on trains; eyes Rs 2,000-crore revenue

The world of commercials is set to invade the spaces of trains in India, both inside and outside, giving the passengers a feeling familiar to the experience of seeing billboards while driving along highways or sitting in Metro trains. 

To boost revenues, the Indian Railways will soon be inviting bids for vinyl-wrapped advertisements on trains. The move is likely to cover 10,000 trains, garnering an additional revenue of Rs 2,000 crore for the national carrier. A tender will be floated later this month.  

According to the policy, the advertisements on trains, including windows of AC coaches and the inside of coaches, will be allowed for 10 years. “We expect to complete the tendering process in the first quarter of 2017-18. The railways has appointed its subsidiary, RITES, as the nodal agency for the bidding process,” said a source.

According to sources, for the bidding process trains will be divided into five categories — Rajdhani; Shatabdi, Jan Shatabdi and double-decker; superfast, AC superfast; city; and Garib Rath trains. For these categories, covering 35,000 coaches, a tender will be invited this month. The winner will sign contracts with the railway zones that own these trains.

The bidding for vinyl-wrapped advertising on 23 trains in the Central and Western Zones last year received interests from Paytm, Media on Track, JCDecaux India and TDI International India.

The zonal railways will invite tenders for the remaining trains such as passenger and local ones. According to the railways, the licensee will be allowed to advertise inside the coaches up to 250 square feet at locations specified by the railway authorities, which will not cover safety and passenger-related instructions. Vinyl wrapping will be permitted on windows of air-conditioned coaches, too, subject to 70 per cent visibility being achieved.

“The licence fee is likely to increase by 10 per cent each year after two years. Initially, the licences will be awarded for five years, which will later be extended, subjected to satisfactory performance by the winner.

However, there will be no prefixing and suffixing of corporate brand names in the train names,” the official added.

The note prepared by EY for the tender has been approved by 13 railway zones. Soon, the railways is likely to come up with a bid to advertise on a high-tech centralised network of 100,000 screens in 2,175 stations. It is also looking to tap outdoor advertisements across road-over-bridges, road-under-bridges and level crossings on a zonal basis.

Coming soon

• Indian Railways to float tender this month
• Move likely to cover 10,000 trains, including 35,000 coaches
• Trains will be divided into five categories for the process