Mumbai's suburban railway commuters to get mobile ticketing app

A new mobile ticketing app will now facilitate hassle free travel for 7.5 million daily suburban railway commuters in Mumbai. The paperless mobile ticket system will be available on the Western Railway’s suburban system between Churchgate and Dahanu Road today, a senior railway official said. The app will be initially available for Android and Windows Phone, but will soon be extended to other platforms including iOS, he said. The mobile ticketing app has been launched with an aim to provide hassle free travel to 7.5 million daily suburban commuters and the facility is result of the efforts of railway officials who wanted bring in use of technology, the Western Railway (WR) official said. “To avail the facility, users will have to first download the latest version of UTS (Unreserved Ticketing System) mobile ticket app from Google Play. Those who have already downloaded the app will just have to upgrade it,” he said. Briefing on the working of the app, the officer said users after downloading the UTS app will not have to stand in the queue or visit automated ticket vending machine (ATVM) kiosk at stations to get the ticket as soft copy of the same will be made available on the smartphones. He said the transaction will be done through R-wallet, a payment system to book unreserved ticket through mobile phones. Meanwhile, the Central Railways officials said they may start the service by August 15 this year after seeing the response of WR commuters. PTI