Indian railways: The Chaniging Face

Whether its lalu or Mamta Banerjee at the helm, Indian Railways has definitely geared itself up for this new millennium.

First the whole awful ordeal of ticket booking was turned into a pleasant 15 minute virtual experience called ‘i-tickets’. While I was still debating the implications of the success or failure of latest pilot project of the Indian railways – ‘e-tickets’, I find another surprise waiting in my mail box today.

“Dear and Valued Customer,

We are happy to inform you that we will shortly be launching a Loyalty Program - A Scheme for Frequent Travelers (SOFT), wherein members will earn loyalty points for buying AC Class (except 3AC) tickets & will be able to redeem these points for FREE railway tickets.”

All this along with some animations and a promise to reach back to me very soon. More on the above scheme can be read in detail over here.

Today, when the competitive environment in air travel is pushing the companies to offer out of the way discounts and schemes, Indian Railways an organization which is virtually enjoying monopoly, comes up with a loyalty scheme. Man!!! The way they are changing is just awesome.

To just know more about their activities I did a small research and here is what I found –

1. Railways is planning to use RFID to track is wagon fleet and parcels.

2. The Rail Tel Corporation, has started to build a nationwide broadband and multimedia network by playing optical fiber cable along 62,800 kilometers of railway track by utilizing railways' 'right of way.

3. Realizing their astounding aversion from the field of ergonomics, the Indian Railways have decided to redesign their bogies starting first at the high end customer level.

4. To improve security and enhance reliability in its railway network, the Indian Railways is deploying GSM-R network in place in two zones within this quarter of 2006.

5. Southern Railway has been operating its road vehicles using bio-diesel since 2004. Its general manager V Anand flagged off these vehicles from the Perambur Loco Shed in Chennai.

6. Flexible Ticketing: The Centre for Railway Information Systems has centralized the purchase and management of unreserved tickets with the use of simple and innovative technology.

Traveling through Indian railways is definitely undergoing an oceanic change. This small picture on the surface definitely gives a hint of lot more happening deep inside out there. And the good thing is its all happening for us to witness. We are definitely going to be a lot richer in bedtime stories for the coming generation J.

Manish Saini