Information system in Indian railways INDIAN RAILWAYS INDIAN

Information system in Indian railways INDIAN RAILWAYS

INDIAN RAILWAYS • Total Length of railway tracks 64015 • Total no of passengers carried daily 20 m • Total amount of freight carried daily 2 million tonnes • No of employees 1. 6 million • No of passenger trains 9000 • No of wagons and coaches 2, 50, 000

Background • Second largest network in the world under single Management • Largest Employer in India • 12 million Passenger everyday – more than any rail system on earth • 500 million metric tons of freight annually • Largest civilian government department in India • 15 Zones, 6853 stations.

Problem • Increasing number of pasengers / customers • Rising input cost upto 200% • Unavailibility of easy, correct & timely access to information • Ineffecient management of resources • Revenue leakage • Poor Customer Service/Satisfaction

Objective • Reduce cost • Reduce burden on staff • Improve efficiency • Provide better Customer Service

What are the solutions to address the problems faced by Indian railways? ?

Solution • Adoption of Customer-centric IT applications – UTS – NTES – ICMS – FOIS – CMS – PRS • Integration of all reservation counters – CONCERT ( Country wide Network of Reservation and Ticketing counters)

Solution • Passenger Reservation System (PRS)- www. indianrail. gov. in – Web enabled – Journey Planning/Fare/Availibility – Reservation between any pair of station – Automatic upgradation – Uses centralized database – 97% reservation made through PRS presently

Solution • IRCTC – www. irctc. co. in – To remove burden on employees at booking counters. – Online ticket reservation system – Payments can be made both on Debit/Credit Card – Uses the Centralised database of Railways

Solution • National Train Enquiry System (NTES) – www. trainenquiry. com – Running position and arrival of train – Information passed on to customers via IVRS and Web

Solution • Freight Operating Information System (FOIS) – Instant information of current status of goods in transit – Helps in managing inventory – Helps in assest utilization

Solution • Unreserved Ticketing System (UTS) – Introduced to address the issue of unreserved tickets – System uses centralized database to manage ticketing so that unreserved ticket can be bought from any terminal. – Brought simplicity and flexibility into the process of procuring tickets even for unreserved class

Crew Management System (CMS) This centralised software takes care of scheduling, training, and sign on and sign off of these workers. It provides an interface for communicating technical issues (such as problems in the track or locomotive) as well as personal issues (leave application, grievances). Finally, it ensures the security of the Railways by mandating biometric authentication of each work before and after their shift, and testing them for the consumption of alcohol.

CONCERT NETWORK TOPOLOGY kolkata PRS Delhi PRS 2 MBPS (x 2) Leased Line Mumbai PRS 2 MBPS (x 2) Leased Line 6 2 MBPS (x 2) Leased Line Secunderabad PRS 2 MBPS Leased Line Delhi 2 MBPS Leased Line 2 MBPS (X 2) Leased Line Calcutta Mumbai Sec. Bad Chennai PRS Chennai 14

INDIAN RAILWAYS What are the benefits to customers from the solutions discussed? ?

Outcomes • Benefits to customers – Transperancy – Universal Booking Counters – Upgradation/ instant update of Status – Reduced wait time – Customer satisfaction

Benefit to Customers Substantial reduction in the queue length and waiting time in queue for passengers by a drastic reduction in the transaction time per passenger. Dispersal of Railway booking offices to the neighbourhood of the passengers. Decongesting the station by having opened PRS booking locations away from the stations. Substantial reduction in the effort to go to distant railway stations based reservation office for booking of tickets. Reducing the last minute rush at the stations by e-ticketing

INDIAN RAILWAYS What are the benefits to Railways from the solutions discussed? ?

Outcomes • Benefits to Railways – Increase in the sale of tickets – Increased revenue – Increased efficiency – Optimal utilisation of berths – Analysis of traffic pattern for better overall planning – Reduction in Revenue losses – Saving on Manpower – Eliminate possibilities of fraud

Benefits to Railways Correct charging of Fare and surcharges immediately after giving effect to fare changes by the Railway Board. Earlier, wires and circulars were required to reach reservation office through post and then be interpreted and manually applied by each staff locally leading to innocent mistakes as well as intentional manipulation causing loss of revenue to the government and overcharging of passengers. Avoidance of mistakes in fare computation as the fares are now given by the central computer. Total transparency in reservation transactions across the country as all information has become universally accessible and each ticket has time, date and booking location printed on it. Better utilization of train berths by elimination of local quotas and the facility to automatically release vacant accommodation during preparation of train charts to downstream stations. Improvement in train occupancy by computerized upgradation of passengers from lower class to higher class of travel in case of vacancy in the higher class and waiting list in the lower class. Facilitating tourists and other visitors from abroad by enabling them to book and print their train journey tickets before they leave their own country.

Summary - Benefits of using IT • Issue of reservation ticket from any station to any station. Passenger journey to multiple laps of reservation can be handled from a single window • Reservation services can offered round the clock 24 x 7. • Change of train profile can be possible effectively and immediately. • Dynamic definition of the advance reservation period is possible. • Provides online aggregation of EIS figure such as revenue , berth utilisation etc. and presentation of the summarised data in the from the operational systems store. • Provides automatic database recovery against all kinds of hardware and software failures. • Complete audit for transactions and data access.