Paperless route: Hand-held devices render reservation charts obsolete on WR

A ticket checker with a hand-held terminal (right) a reservation chart

Paper printing and reservation charts on Western Railway (WR) are passe now, as all ticket checkers have now been given hand-held devices. The method of pasting reservation charts on trains and stations to confirm seats had been a practice ever since the seat reservation system was started.

"Hand-held terminals (HHTs) have now been provided in all 298 mail/express trains originating from WR. A total of 1,385 ticket-checking staff who are manning the mail/express trains have been provided with HHTs. Trains of other railways which pass through WR are also checked by WR's travelling ticket examiners with HHTs," said Sumit Thakur, chief public relations officer, WR.

"These HHTs help the ticket-checking staff to allot vacant berths to RAC (reservation against cancellation) and waitlisted passengers and can also be used to send updated information about the occupancy of seats/berths back to the server. The HHTs relay real-time information to the PRS through GPRS and the vacant berth can be allotted to waitlisted passengers on subsequent stations," he added.

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Explaining how the new system is helpful at the national level, Thakur said that this helps Indian Railways better utilise its capacity in case a passenger fails to board the train or cancels their ticket before the preparation of the chart. "This also ensures better transparency in the seat allotment system and does away with the cumbersome manual procedures involved in the same," he added.

"With the implementation of the HHTs, the system of printing the charts is now obsolete, thereby making it paperless. It is worthwhile to mention that WR first introduced HHT devices in the form of tablets in August Kranti Rajdhani. Express in 2018 and today, by 2023, we have finished providing them in all trains," he added.