 "Now you can buy unreserved train tickets on Railways' UTS mobile app")
Railways' UTS mobile app for buying unreserved tickets online is available nationwide from Thursday, the ministry said.
Buying unreserved tickets on all non-suburban sections across all zonal railways has been made available from November 1, which will obviate the need for passengers to wait in queues, it said in a statement.
The process of availing tickets involves downloading the application and registration by furnishing the requisite details. After successful registration, the user is given a user-ID and password, which the person can use to log-in and book tickets.
The passenger has to be within a five-kilometre range of the source station to be able to buy a ticket through the UTS app. A passenger is allowed to book four tickets at a time.
Via the app, a registered user can also buy platform tickets and monthly passes.
A pilot project for buying unreserved tickets through mobile phone was commenced in December, 2014 on select stations on Central Railway to provide customers the convenience of booking of unreserved tickets without having to stand in queues.
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Gradually, unreserved mobile ticketing was extended to all suburban sections in metropolitan cities of Chennai, Delhi, Kolkata and Secunderabad between 2015 and 2017 along with the facility of paperless ticketing.
The facility to buy unreserved tickets, including season tickets and platform tickets, is available through UTSONMOBILE' app on Android, iOS and Windows phones.
It was introduced on non-suburban sections in 2015, initially on Delhi-Palwal section of Northern Railway and then extended to other non-suburban sections of Northern, South Central, Southern, South Western, East Coast, South East Central and South Eastern Railways.
While the app was launched four years ago, it is this year that users warmed up to it.
In January 2018, 1,80,000 passengers used the app per day, in September it rose to 4,40,000 passengers and in October the number of passengers using the app climbed to 4,75,000 per day. The revenue generated currently from the app is around Rs 4.5 million per day.
"The number of passengers availing tickets using the app is around two per cent of the total tickets booked. So there is a huge scope of generating revenue through this," said Member Traffic, Girish Pillai, told reporters.
Railways sold 7,483 million unreserved tickets across its network in 2017-2018.