Indian Railways, keeping in view the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, will adopt the facility of contactless ticketing similar to facilities at airports with QR code-enabled tickets. A senior railway official has said that the QR code-enabled tickets will be scanned on handheld devices and mobile phones at railway stations and on trains, according to a PTI report. Last month, an automatic QR code-based ticket scanning system was introduced by Indian Railways at the Prayagraj junction railway station, in a first-of-its-kind initiative. The contactless ticketing system is believed to help passengers as well as railway staff to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus. Here is how the contactless QR code-based ticket scanning system will work:
- CRIS has rolled out an application, for contactless ticket checking of reserved tickets, covering all the zones of Indian Railways to display PRS ticket details as QR Code.
- Once the tickets are booked, an SMS will be sent to the mobile number of the passenger, containing the URL of the QR code.
- During the station entry or during the checking of the train ticket, passengers will have to click on the QR code URL available on his or her SMS.
- After doing this, the QR code of the reserved ticket will be displayed on the mobile browser of the passenger.
- The TTE will scan the displayed QR code of the reserved ticket on the passenger’s mobile browser, through his or her mobile device having the capability of scanning the QR code. According to Indian Railways, any free QR code scanner mobile application available in iOS App Store or Google Play store such as QR and Barcode Scanner, QR Code reader, etc. can be used for this purpose.
- Moreover, the HHT application is also capable of scanning this QR code and it will fill the PNR details in the application automatically for TTE for turn up action. Currently, the facility is live and SMS with links for generating QR code is being sent on the provided mobile number.