Come January, woes of waitlisted Indian Railways passengers will end! From next year onwards, even if a railway ticket is cancelled after the train has started from its origin destination, the information will be directly sent to the TTE. This would allow vacant berths or seats to be immediately given to the waitlisted passengers on the subsequent stations. The decision has been made by Piyush Goyal-led Railway Ministry in a bid to enhance passenger-friendly amenities and services. The move has already been used as a pilot project in some Shatabdi Express and Rajdhani Express trains. Now, it will be implemented on other trains as well, a railway ministry official told Financial Express Online. For this facility, the TTEs will be provided with hand-held terminal devices. These hand-held terminal devices will be directly connected to the railway server and every update on the tickets will be immediately sent to the terminal.

 

Till now, the TTE used to wait for the passenger for the next two stations, after seeing an empty seat. Even if the train had vacant seats, waitlisted passengers were unable to get confirmed accommodation. Moreover, the process of refund was initiated only after the report was put out for display by the TTE. However, with the commencement of this new system, if a ticket is cancelled by the passenger, the TTE would be notified immediately. Moreover, once the terminal is updated, the waitlisted passengers will be assigned to confirmed seats. Also, the process of refund on cancellation of tickets will start immediately.

 

As it would be difficult for the national transporter to provide a large number of hand-held terminal devices to all the TTEs together, the work would be done in two phases. Under the first phase of the project, 500 hand-held terminal devices will be provided to TTEs and under the second phase of the project, as many as 8000 devices will be given. After implementing the project across all Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Duronto Express trains, the terminal devices will be handed over to TTEs of all other Mail and Express trains.