NE BUSINESS BUREAU
CHENNAI, AUG 8
Scrutiny of reserved tickets in trains and allotment of vacant seats would be done using handheld terminals as ticket checking staff of all six Divisions of the Southern Railway got 800 Handheld Terminal (HHT) machines, equipped with modern technology and will provide many facilities to the passengers.
In order to promote the Digital India campaign, Indian Railways is using Handheld Terminal (HHT) equipment by its ticketing inspectors/examiners to check reserved tickets in a running train and provide vacant seats to other passengers.
Presently, the Southern Railway has been allotted a total of 857 Handheld Terminals. The distribution to divisions are 246 HHTs to Chennai Division, 101 to Tiruchchirappalli Division, 98 to Madurai Division, 148 to Thiruvananthapuram Division, 140 to Palakkad Division and 124 to Salem Division. Of these, over 800 have been deployed for on-board ticket checking in about 185 trains running in the zone. Handheld Terminals will be proliferated and introduced in many other trains in a phased manner.
- Southern Railway gets 857 Handheld Terminals for Onboard Ticket Checking Staff (TTEs) of six SR divisions
- The equipment was initially deployed in Train No.12007/12008 Chennai – Mysuru – Chennai Shatabdi and Train No.12243/12244 Chennai – Coimbatore – Chennai Shatabdi Express trains.
Aimed at simplifying on-board ticket checking, Handheld Terminals (HHTs) were launched as a pilot project in Southern Railway on 31st December 2018. A novel initiative introduced as part of Prime Minister’s Digital India Mission, HHTs were put to use on an experimental basis on two train services in Southern Railway, in the first phase. The equipment was initially deployed in Train No.12007/12008 Chennai – Mysuru – Chennai Shatabdi and Train No.12243/12244 Chennai – Coimbatore – Chennai Shatabdi Express trains.
Train No.22672/22671 Madurai – Chennai Egmore – Madurai Tejas Express, Train No.12653/12654 Chennai Egmore – Tiruchchirappalli – Chennai Egmore Rockfort Express, Train No.12673/12674 Dr MGR Chennai Central – Coimbatore Jn – Dr MGR Chennai Central Cheran Express, Train No.22153/22154 Chennai Egmore – Salem – Chennai Egmore Superfast Express are some of the popular trains in which Handheld Terminals have been used by TTEs for ticket checking.
Its use will bring transparency in the work of TTE and the use of vacant berths during train operation will also be accompanied by rail records. Through this HHT, now the ticket inspector will be able to see the details of the passenger in it instead of the chart, which will save paper as well as save the main power. By feeding the details of vacant berths by the invigilator in this device, the passengers will be able to book the available vacant berths in that train at the next station in the form of current tickets through mobile from the station or internet.
