Mumbai: Mobile ticketing on eight more suburban stations

On Wednesday, both Central and Western Railways commissioned mobile ticketing at CST, Thane, Kalyan, Vashi, Churchgate, Bombay Central, Andheri and Borivli stations.

Suburban commuters can now avail mobile ticketing at eight more stations.

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On Wednesday, both Central and Western Railways commissioned mobile ticketing at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST), Thane, Kalyan, Vashi, Churchgate, Bombay Central, Andheri and Borivli stations.

For commuters, this means they can book tickets through their mobile phones and get it printed from the automatic ticket vending machines (ATVM) at these stations. The railways are planning to commission this facility within a fortnight.

Last week, railway minister Suresh Prabhu had inaugurated mobile ticketing at Dadar. Although commuters appreciated the move, they complained about the compulsion of printing the tickets.

“The railways should develop a mechanism where an SMS can be used as ticket,” said Beniz Swamy, a Chembur resident.

Other problems, commuters said, are that they are not able to procure extension tickets and are compelled to print tickets from source stations.

The unavailability of online recharge and a minimum recharge of Rs100 were the other grouses.

“The railways allow a minimum recharge of Rs 20 in ATVMs, then why should the amount be Rs 100 for mobile ticketing? They should give incentives initially to shift commuters from conventional ticketing to mobile ticketing, instead of keeping such barriers,” said Ashish Desai, Goregaon-based software engineer.

So far, 10,000 commuters have downloaded the mobile ticketing app.

However, this has not converted to sales. So far, approximately only 50 tickets have been sold through mobile ticketing.