Mobile ticketing, high-speed, cleaner stations and delivery of food in trains, these are few of the many brilliant initiatives taken by the Indian Railways to better the passenger experience and its reputation. Let us throw light on a few of these.
Mobile ticketing – A mobile ticket system was inaugurated for the Suburban Mumbai tickets at the Dadar Railway Station in December 2014. For now, this system is for Dadar station only. Very soon this will be implemented at Kurla, Kalyan, Thane and Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. All stations in India proposed to have this service. All you need to do is download the app for windows/android to avail this facility. Also, the app for blackberry and android will also be soon available.
Free WI-FI – The proposed free WI-FI services are already available at the Daily Railway Station and the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus. This project for free WI-FI is being carried out by RailTel, which is a public sector that is under the Ministry of Railways. Also, the Bangalore Railway Station has also successfully received this service. This WI-FI, powered by RailWire offers a maximum speed of about 1mbps. The WI-FI facility is available free of cost initially, but only for thirty minutes by registering through their mobile on the WI-FI network.
High speed rail – Continuing its emphasis on rapidly increasing the speed of all passenger trains, a highly successful trial of the semi-high speed trains of about 160kmph has successfully been conducted between the cities of New Delhi and Agra. As a part of the government’s incentives of upgrading the rail network, this test saw the train finish 200 kms between Agra and New Delhi in less than 90 minutes. This semi-high speed carrier has a total of 10 coaches. The few other identified routes for the 160kmph are; Delhi-Chandigarh, Delhi-Agra, Delhi-Kanpur, Mysore-Bengaluru-Chennai; Nagpur-Bilaspur, Mumbai-Goa, Chennai- Hyderabad Mumbai-Ahmadabad and Nagpur-Secunderabad. All of these routes are under various levels of study and examination. Also, the Ministry of Railways has taken steps for introducing High Speed Bullet Trains in India on the Mumbai-Ahmadabad route.
Cleanliness – The Indian Railways has been issued many directions for the formulation of the Integrated Policy on the Cleanliness in stations, coaches and on platforms. This policy will ensure much better and much effective coordination between the numbers of departments in for providing better cleanliness, as per the Railways. As a part of the ‘Swachh Bharat Mission,’ Indian Railways has also launched a great special cleanliness campaign from October, 2014. Also, apart from this, many track cleaning machines also have been introduced by the Northern Railways.
Food delivery– Many new companies have come up, which provide delivery of food in train. You can choose your choice of food beforehand, and they will come and deliver it fresh and hot right at your seat. The food is prepared in hygienic conditions so there is no need to worry about carrying it from home or any other health concerns.
The Indian Railways is the world’s second largest network of rails. Most people prefer train over air for its lesser fares and better enjoyment.
You must be logged in to post a comment.