Indian Railways, the fourth largest rail networks of world, had adopted digitization in order to ease the train journey. The decision taken by the Union Railway Minister of India was a milestone achieved as it was the first time when Railways started its online functionality by booking ticket online (also known as e-tickets). There was a time when passengers had to stand in a long crowded queue to book journey tickets and got a stamped ticket from over the counter. After that computerised tickets came to existence and further the Indian Railways expanded itself with internet facilities. With the advent of digitization, it’s the time when we avoid standing in the long queue because of lack of time. The development of digitization is set on fire and the services of Indian Railways are hosted online for passengers’ perusal. Our smartphone is the best journey partner through which we can book tickets online and order food for train journey even in advance to make it easier. Seeing the need of passengers; Indian Railways had launched many services online. Some of them are as follow:
- E-tickets (Reserved, Unreserved and Tatkal tickets)
- Checking PNR status
- Live Train Status
- Live Station feature
- E-catering (online food ordering)
- Complaint department (via SMS or applications)
- Seat availability in trains
- Arrival and departure of Trains
Online Reservation of Train Tickets:
Reserving tickets online is one of the first and vital steps for a traveler as it reduces the stress to book from the PRS counters. It saves time. However, getting confirmed/waiting/RAC tickets have become easier but the crowd for unreserved tickets were still unmanageable. Railways, through its innovative steps had come up with a solution in form of an app. It’s the UTS app for booking unreserved tickets.
UTS App: A Step by IR towards Cashless Digital Economy
The word UTS stands for Unreserved Ticketing System launched by Indian Railways in November 2018. It is a general ticket booking app that allows passengers to buy unreserved paperless tickets for a journey between two stations. UTS tickets are unreserved tickets that are paperless as well as one can also print them through ATVM/CoTVM/OCR machines.
Where to Download UTS App:
UTS app is available on Google Playstore in free of cost. You can visit there to download the android, windows or iOS versions. After successful downloading, move ahead for registration process.
Registration process of UTS app:
To continue registration with the UTS app, verify your mobile number, enter your name, password, gender and date of birth in given column. When the registration is done, a SMS will be sent to your number with login-ID and password and zero-balance R-wallet will be created without any additional cost.
Functionality of UTS app
There’re many online functionalities available to generate UTS paperless ticket. If you’re in a dilemma on how to use uts app and the plethora of services available, here’re the details of UTS app.
Booking of Tickets: After opening the UTS app the booking interface will appear where you can see the following options:
- Normal Booking: It includes two options. Book and travel (Paperless) and Book and Print (Paper) options of booking tickets. For paperless journey, you should be in 2 km range of railway station premises. If you select Book and Print, you can buy your ticket from anywhere but you have to carry a print out of your ticket at originating station via ATVM/CoTVM/OCR machines. When you select Book and print option, then it opens another window where you have to enter your boarding and destination station and tap on “Done” button. It will show the options of routes, if multiple routes are available for your destination, select your shortest route. Fill the given form. Select the number of adults and children, your train type like ordinary (for passenger trains) or Mail/Express or Superfast and select your payment mode like RWALLET or Pay Using – Debit/Credit/Net banking or UPI and click on “OK”. Your ticket will be booked. Before boarding your train you have to take a print out of the same. Without a print out, you will be considered as a ticketless passenger.
- Quick Booking: It is as same as the normal booking. But you can only use it at that condition, if you are regular user of UTS application and you have added any route as your favorite route. It reduces the option of selecting boarding and destination station.
- Platform Ticket: Every visitor needs a platform ticket to get access to the platform premises. There’re certain platform ticket rules which every traveler must know. UTS app also allows to book platform tickets in few seconds. So avoid the queue and go digital.
- Season Ticket: with the option of Book and Travel & Book and Print, it is available for specific routes.
Cancel Ticket: This function allows the passenger to cancel your Normal/Quick or Season tickets. The passenger can select one of the tickets for cancellation. The ticket will be cancelled if the cancellation request is fulfilling the cancellation rule. The money will be refilled into his payment instrument. There will not be any cash refund to the passenger.
Booking History: Either you book or cancel your ticket; all booking history will be shown in this function.
R-Wallet: When you click on this function, you’ll simply be asked to login to your account or enter your registered your number. After login, four options will be displayed:
- Recharge Rwallet: This Recharge R-wallet is designed to add money in your wallet through which you can easily book your ticket within a few clicks. As if your wallet balance is 0 (Zero) and you are in hurry to buy ticket online, then at payment time you need to open your payment gateway, add debit/credit card or net banking details, and then you’ll be eligible to book or buy you unreserved tickets. Well it’s not mandatory to recharge your wallet, but if you recharge it is time saving and instant. When you click on this option, you’ll be asked to “Enter Recharge Amount” and after tapping on Recharge option, you will be redirected to the payment gateway i.e. Paytm, MobiKwik and Freecharge, depending on your choice. It means if you select Freecharge then you must have a Freecharge account, so that you can login into and add your card details to recharge your Rwallet. (Note: You can only add the amount in multiple of hundreds and the minimum amount you can recharge is 100 and maximum will be Rs.10,000)
- Current Balance: When you click on this option it will show your current balance available in you R wallet.
- Recharge History: Tapping on this function means you’re going to check your recharge history. This option will show the history of recharges i.e when and amount of recharge you have done through your R-wallet.
- Surrender Rwallet: This option is used to get refund of the Rwallet. If you have recharged your Rwallet and want to discontinue and get your money back; then you can apply for surrender wallet by clicking. A code will be sent to you via SMS on your registered mobile number that can be used at booking counter to get refund after deducting clerkage charges. However, surrender policy may vary.
Profile:
This option offers you to change your city, travel routes, journey details, password of your UTS login ID, handset (maximum one handset will be allow change within 3 months), personal details like ID card, gender or date of birth and sync tickets.
Show Book Ticket: This function is designed to show your current ticket. Remember that, you cannot share your UTS ticket with anyone.
Help:When you select this option you will get Helpline numbers, FAQ’s and “Getting Started” option on your windows.
Logout:Like other apps this option is also used exit the application.Crucial information about UTS app
- Your age should be minimum 17 years. If a buyer is suspended or removed from the service of Railways then he/she is also not allowed to use this service.
- You should have Android/Windows/iPhone smartphones only and your smartphone have minimum GPRS connectivity.
- Your booking range should be within 2 km to 60 meters. If you’re out of the 2 km zone, then booking window will not be opened.
- You cannot buy your ticket without login or registering on that application, means registration is mandatory.
- Maximum amount of buying tickets are 4 adult and 4 children.
- It is not mandatory to top-up your R-wallet; you can also pay by debit/credit/UPI or net banking through paytm, MobiKwik or freecharge.
- If you have bought your ticket through Book and print option, then it is mandatory to printout the ticket. In case, you’re not able to print out your ticket immediately contact the booking officer supervisor or call Railway customer care.
- You can’t share tickets with anyone. One can only use your ticket if you logout your account from your smartphone and share the credentials to another. They can access it by login your account in their smartphone.
- Paperless season tickets are valid from only next day of the booking.
- If you have booked ticket from book and travel option and your money get deducted but ticket is not booked, kindly call the customer care executive, your money will be refund within 7 days.
- Paperless tickets are not allowed to cancellation.
- Paper tickets will be cancelled and refund will be sent in your R-wallet, through mobile,if you’ve not printed yet or via UTS counter, if printed by Kiosk. You can apply for within one hour of printing.
- You can show your booked ticket to TTE online as well as offline.
- Platform tickets are valid for only 2 hours from the time of booking.
- Remember, if your phone battery is down or you’ll be unable to show your ticket to TTE from any reason, you’ll be treated as ticket less passenger and treated as the same.
- Your registered mobile number will not be changed.
- If you have changed your handset, your booked ticket will be recovered.
Handset Change Request for UTS app
UTS application is designed in such way that it cannot be logged into two devices. But if you don’t have active ticket, then you can change your handset by Change Handset Option otherwise one has to follow some special rules for some cases like you have lost your phone or get new phone etc, then you have to follow following rules to login into another smartphone.Want to change handset: You can change your handset within a month with active tickets as follow:
- Initiate the change handset (IMEI) request from the existing mobile device.
- Download the application in the new mobile.
- Login to the application in new mobile phone by using their credential in.
- Sync ticket option to re-sync the ticket to the new mobile.
- All the ticket will be bound to the new mobile handset.
Mobile handset is lost:
You can request to CCM/PM office of the Railways with following documents –- Copy of FIR/CSR
- Copy of the duplicate SIM CARD request letter given to Mobile Network Operator.
Mobile Handset is non-repairable:
You can request to CCM/PM office of the Railways with following documents:- Copy of the letter from the dealer or service center saying that the mobile in non-repairable.
- Copy of the duplicate SIM CARD request letter given to Mobile Network Operator.
Rebooking Tickets by UTS app:
There will be an option to re-book the ticket for the current date; the system will automatically change the journey date to current date. The app System will check whether the passenger’s RWallet is having sufficient balance or not. If the RWallet is having sufficient balance to book the ticket, then the ticket fare amount will be deducted from the RWallet and ticket will be booked. Otherwise, the application will give a message “Insufficient balance”. The passenger will get a confirmation message with ticket information along with unique booking ID and will be asked to print the ticket at the station using ATVM Kiosks.The passenger will get a text message with ticket information as SMS and IRCODE.If you have mistakenly initiated the surrender wallet then you can also reactivate your wallet by calling to customer care of your zone. But if you have blocked your R-wallet then you’re not entitled to any refund. The contact details of all zones of the Indian Railways and uts customer care number toll free numbers are listed below:
- Mumbai CR – 138 or crutscentre@gmail.com
- Mumbai WR – 138 or utsonmobile.wr@gmail.com
- Sealdah – 138 or comcnlsdah@gmail.com
- Howrah – 138 or comcnlerhwh@gmail.com
- Secunderabad – 138 or utsonmobile@scr.railnet.gov.in
- Chennai – 044-25351621 or utsonmobile_chr@cris.org.in
- Delhi – 011-23361955 or consoleuts.2019@gmail.com
- SECR – 07752-407668 or ccmsecrbsp@yahoo.co.in
- SWR – 08861-309572 or utsonmobile_swr@cris.org.in
- ECoR – 08455-885961 or utsonmoblieecor@gmail.com
- NER – 138 or utsconsolegkp@gmail.com
- SER – 033-22107435 ormobtkt.ser@ser.railnet.gov.in
- NCR – 0531-2435200 or utsonmobile.ncr@gmail.com
- NWR – 0141-2725942 or mobtktnwr@nwr.railnet.gov.in
- ECR – 0612-2201736 or utsonmobileecr@gmail.com
- NFR – 138 or utsonmobilenfr@gmail.com
- WCR – 138 or ccorwcr@gmail.com
If you’re the next to travel and want to avoid the long queue for ticketing; Download UTS app and save your time.