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Case Study of Indian Railway
Case Study of Indian Railway
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Article in International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering · August 2014
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Abstract — The demand for safe, fast, and reliable rail services Identification (UID) based input will bypass a huge overhead of
continues to be the reason for concern in all the countries across manual entry of passenger details. Also the verification of
the globe. Lack of operational efficiency and reliability, safety passenger-identity will be comprehensive and secure further. The
and security issues, and aging railway systems and practices are introduction of a more efficient UID-based reservation system
haunting various countries to bring about a change in their will facilitate in handling the data more efficiently with the help
existing rail infrastructure. The global rail industry struggles to of inter-database interaction. Moreover this will be a step ahead in
meet the increasing demand for freight and passenger wiping out different corruptions and loopholes in the existing
transportation due to lack of optimized use of rail network and system, thereby providing an excellent and efficient passenger
[2]
inefficient use of rail assets. This is expected to induce rail service as addressed in Vision 2020.
executives to build rail systems that are smarter and more The smart railways research report consists of the future market
efficient. The passenger reservation system of Indian Railways is trends in the railway transportation technologies. The report
one of the world’s largest reservation models. Daily about one provides a comprehensive examination of market drivers for
million passengers travel in reserved accommodation with Indian railways as a smart transportation infrastructure investment,
Railways. Another sixteen million travel with unreserved tickets including an assessment of the various approaches being taken in
in Indian Railways. In this vast system, it is a herculean task to the key countries around the globe. It also presents detailed
efficiently handle the passenger data, which is a key point of analysis, market sizing, and forecasting of emerging rail
consideration now-a-days. In this paper, the authors have technology submarkets. The smart railways research report also
explored different issues of implementing smart computing in provides an in-depth analysis of proposed and ongoing projects
railway systems pertaining to reservation models. by various countries on technologies and Information Technology
(IT) solutions for setting up smart railways infrastructure. The
Keywords: operational efficiency , global rail industry, report is segmented into various smart tech rail solutions,
Indian Railways, smart computing, passenger reservation applications, and devices and components. This smart railways
system, unique identification, inter-database query processing, research report analyzes global adoption trends, future growth
automatic ticket vending machine, ubiquitous computing, potentials, key drivers, competitive outlook, restraints,
Aadhaar, online reservation, e-ticket, one-time password opportunities, rail transportation ecosystem, and best practices in
this market. This report speaks about the expected market size for
1. INTRODUCTION the various software solutions and components involved in the
rail infrastructure system. It also highlights the revenue potential
of the various professional services, integration services, and
Railway services are available in most of the countries in the
cloud services offered by the railway solution vendors. The report
world. However, the demand for fast, reliable, and passenger-
consists of the opportunity analysis of various types of smart
friendly services is always being felt. With the ever increasing
railway solutions such as passenger and freight information
passenger and freight loads, more efficient mechanisms are
system, rail traffic management system, rail operations
needed to handle this increasing demand. And this would not be
management system, advance security monitoring system, rail
of only man-power but of smart technologies which when
communication and networking system, smart ticketing system,
induced within the system, would produce a smarter railway
and rail analytics system. The report brings out the railway
system throughout.
solutions business potential across different regions such as North
Smart Computing is a newer approach of technology which can
America (NA), Asia
be efficiently used in Railway systems. Handling passenger data
Pacific including Japan (APAC), Europe (EU), Latin
has been a key point of consideration in most railway services. In
America (LA), and Middle East and Africa (MEA). It further
the case of Indian Railways, detailed passenger data is needed to
segments each regional market by solutions types and industry
be handled for mostly the reserved accommodations. And to
verticals, and forecasts the revenue for the various submarkets.
provide fast and efficient services, the huge passenger data needs
The major smart rail technology solution providers profiled in the
to be processed and stored in a very fast and seamless manner.
report include Siemens AG, IBM Corporation, Hitachi, Ltd.,
For Indian railways, modifying the existing setup with Unique
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Parag Chatterjee et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 3(4), July-August 2014, 61-66
Alstom SA, Alcatel-Lucent, Ansaldo STS, Huawei Technologies such as Asia Pacific including Japan (APAC), Europe (EU),
Co., Ltd., ABB Ltd., Bombardier Inc., GE Transportation, CGI and Middle East and Africa (MEA) and the large number of
Group Inc., Cisco Systems, Inc., and ZTE Corporation among ongoing and upcoming smart rail transportation projects
others. worldwide are expected to create room for the smart rail systems.
The global smart railways market is estimated to grow
from $12.30 billion in 2013 to $39.20 billion in 2018, at a
2. MARKETS COVERED Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 26.1% during the
forecast period. Markets and Markets outline the key trends that
The global railway market is segmented on the basis of the will shape the evolution of the passenger and freight rail industry.
following: Smart railway infrastructure services and solutions are balanced
Solutions: Passenger Information System (PIS), Freight to catalyze the next phase of growth in the rail transportation
Information System (FIS), railway traffic management industry. Smart railway transportation can drive the
system, rail operations management system, advance transformation of rail networks from a basic means of transport to
security monitoring system, rail communication and complex systems that are indispensable to society. Rail executives
networking system, smart ticketing system, and railway must strive to meet the demand for rail systems that are integrated
analytics system into the global economy, competitive with other transportation
Devices and components: Video surveillance, rail systems, and flexible enough to meet global trade and passenger
sensors, networking and connectivity devices, smart demands. Smart rail infrastructure is expected to lead to an
cards, and multimedia displays expanded rail ecosystem, asset optimization, new revenue model
opportunities, and new ways to serve customers.
Services: Professional services, integration services, Smart Computing is an almost new technique which can be
cloud services and ubiquitous services. efficiently used in Indian Railways Passenger Reservation
System. Basically, the distributed and implicit approach of Smart
The concept smart railways imply a set of new-generation Computing can be employed to link different stakeholders of the
solutions, services, and modern transportation with the help of reservation mechanism, without vividly opening up the
Information and Communication Technology (ICT). It combines underlying mechanisms. The computing and distributed structure
software products to make more intelligent use of all rail assets, will lie entirely subtle, and the passengers need not to interact
from tracks to trains, so companies can meet the increasing with this underlying computing system explicitly. Exploiting the
consumer demand for more efficient and safer services. Trends basic concept of ubiquitous computing
[3]
that numerous
such as regulation, sustainability, demographics (growing traffic computers will serve for a single user entity, a huge
and aging population), economics (limited public funding and interconnected structure is needed to be designed, which will
price sensitivity), mobility, and Information Technology (IT) provide necessary interfaces. But this is always to be maintained,
innovations are impacting the rail industry. As a result, every
that the overhead of users explicitly interacting with computers
aspect of the value chain — from passenger service to the back- and its accessories is to be minimized as much as possible. To be
end organization — is changing. The main long-term drivers of very clear, mechanisms are to be embedded within the throughout
the railway market are linked with economic and demographic systems, such that the user-entered data automatically gets
growth in the emerging markets. In mature markets, they are fetched to the computers and will be ready for processing. In this
related to the renewal and upgrading of existing infrastructures, as context, the Unique Identification Number (example: Aadhaar
well as increased environmental and sustainability awareness. In number as in case of India) or UID would serve as the key factor
spite of the recent global economic downturn with slower growth of the system and with the help of inter-database query and
and governments’ mounting deficits, the long-term outlook for transaction processing, and the system so designed would be very
the railway industry remains positive, with investments in rail and fast compared to the existing one. Also the inter-database linkage
urban transport projects not being significantly impacted. The would be beneficial in providing different services to the
future rail industry is expected to rely upon smarter transportation passengers linked with the same UID.
systems that leverage technologies over larger rail network
infrastructure. New technologies include integrated service
management solutions, asset management software, and
predictive analytic tools which are expected to help rail 3. KEY ROLE OF UID IN SMART PASSENGER
management companies to manage optimal routes, schedules, and RESERVATION SYSTEM
capacities in near real-time. With the increasing presence of smart
technologies in the rail transportation, the associated solutions
The UID (E.g. Aadhaar Number in India) would serve as a major
and services market will grow at higher growth rates globally.
backbone for this entire smart Passenger Reservation System
The emerging technologies such as smart ticketing, rail analytics,
model. The services offered by the Passenger Reservation System
cloud adoption, smart traffic, and operation solutions will enable
would be provided keeping this UID as the primary identification
efficient and better rail infrastructure. It will also improve timely
key. Countries having UID registration in a comprehensive status
decision-making for issues such as asset deployment, utilization,
can easily implement this UID-based reservation model to get a
and maintenance. The high growth rate in the overall rail
very efficient and smart approach in ticketing system. As in case
spending worldwide, with major boom from regional economies
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Parag Chatterjee et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 3(4), July-August 2014, 61-66
of India, since the UID registration is not fully completed the remaining passengers travelling in the same ticket is not
country-wide, the model would be initially implemented on properly taken care of.
selected domain, which in turn will gradually eat up the existing
Passenger Reservation System with incremental coverage.
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Parag Chatterjee et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 3(4), July-August 2014, 61-66
journey, Train number, Class of travel etc.) is to be manually Case 1: Total 6 passengers are seeking reservation on a
entered into the system. And then with receipt of the fare, the single ticket. In this case, at least one passenger should enter his
ticket can be handed over to the passenger. UID at first, on which OTP will be verified. After verification of
one passenger is done, he can proceed to reserve tickets for other
Case 1: Total passengers travelling in a single ticket is passengers in the same ticket with himself, just by entering their
six. But only one person has come to procure the ticket. In that UIDs. As soon as the booking is proceeded for payment,
case, that person has to bring the Aadhaar cards or simply the automatically an SMS is to be sent to all the passengers (whose
UID numbers of other passengers with him. In this case, only the UIDs are entered but are not verified with OTP) informing that a
UIDs are fed to the system, and using the inter-database query ticket is purchased with their name as passenger. Any discrepancy
service the passenger information is fetched from the UIDAI of purchase of false/fake personified tickets would be sorted out
database (without finger-print verification). This implies at least at this stage only.
one of the passengers travelling is present physically. The other Case 2: A senior citizen is seeking concession for fare.
passengers are to carry their Aadhaar cards with them while He has to select the type of concession. As he selects the
travelling (to be verified by the ticket examiner). concession type as “senior citizen”, the system checks the age and
Case 2: A senior citizen is seeking concession in sex, and applies the respective concession (“Senior Citizen Male”
railway tickets. This can be instantly verified from the query or ”Senior Citizen Female”).
result obtained from UIDAI database, which also returns the Age Case 3: An authorized representative of the passenger
corresponding to a UID. While travelling, the ticket examiner will is booking a ticket. In this case, his UID is input into the system.
verify the Aadhaar card of the passenger (senior citizen) whether Also the UIDs of all the passengers who will be travelling are
it bears the same details as in the railway records. Other also entered into the system. In this case, the OTP will be sent to
concessions may also be applied by choosing suitable options in the first passenger. With correct response of OTP, the system will
the interface. proceed further for booking, payment, and ticket generation.
Case 3: An authorized representative of the passenger
has come to the booking counter to get tickets. In this case, that
authorized representative of the passenger has to present the UIDs 7. IMPLEMENTATION AND ADVANTAGES OF THE SMART
of all the passengers. Also he should have to present his own UID PASSENGER RESERVATION SYSTEM MODEL
(or Aadhaar Card) and input his finger-print which should be
recorded by the railways database. In that case, along with the Since the existing PRS model is a wide-spread existing structure,
passengers, the details of the authorized representative of the it is practically impossible to usher in a new model, completely
passengers are also recorded in the system for the purpose of flushing away the old one. But this smart PRS model can be
future reference. In this case also the passengers are to carry their implemented just by introducing some modifications into the
Aadhaar cards with them while travelling. existing system. Just as in case, presently the data entry in the
system during the time of reservation is done manually. When the
B. At Online Reservation System -----
new model introduces the UID-based entry and verification, an
Now this new model is to be discussed with respect to E-ticketing overlying interface is to be designed, which will handle this
system. In this model, the passenger seeking reservation will enter portion of data entry and will feed the same data to the system,
the portal of Indian Railways. In the user interface, the passenger but the data will be supplied based on the UID.
needs only to enter the UID. As soon as the UID is entered, the
UID itself feeds the railway database with all personal
information obtained from the UIDAI database by virtue of inter-
database query services. Then a One Time Password (OTP) is
generated and is sent to the mobile number registered against the
UID. That OTP is to be entered into the system within a stipulated
time, after which the OTP expires. With this OTP from the
registered mobile number, the identity of the passenger is
verified. After this verification, the passenger can enter the
journey details and proceed for payment and receipt of ticket.
Also, once a passenger books a ticket using E-ticketing system,
the corresponding UID and registered mobile number information
is saved in the portal. Next time the user needs to book a ticket,
he can simply send SMS from his registered mobile number. In
reply, the portal sends the necessary connected information
already saved in the system (name, UID etc.) which can be
verified by the user. If satisfied, the user can proceed further with
interactive SMS and the ticket gets booked. Provisions would be Figure 1. Working of the UID-based Reservation System in Indian
there where the ticket charges are directly debited from a Bank Railways
Account connected to the particular UID.
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Parag Chatterjee et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 3(4), July-August 2014, 61-66
Hence the modification is to be implemented in a superficial In this new model, this loophole can easily be solved since here is
layer, lying over the existing system of manually entering the a two-level check in identity. Firstly the identity of at least one
personal details of the passenger. And for the time being, due to passenger is verified at the PRS counter. Secondly with the entry
introduction of the new system (Figure 1), the two systems can of UID, photo-reservation charts are prepared. During journey,
run parallel. Discussing with the advantages brings firstly the no the concerned Ticket Examiner verifies the UID number in the
breach in verification of the passengers travelling in the reserved reservation chart with the Aadhaar card produced by the
coaches of the train. The new system involves comprehensive passenger. Also the photograph is verified with that of the
check of identity in case of every passengers travelling onboard. passenger.
Also the huge overhead of typing the details of all the passengers
is bypassed by a more intelligent and efficient method of data In case of E-tickets, the biometric
entry using UID. This identification is also comprehensively verification at PRS counter could not be done. Instead the
verified in a second phase at the running train, when the verification would be done using One-time Password (OTP) sent
Travelling Ticket Examiner (TTE) verifies the passengers to the registered mobile number. During travel, the passenger
physically travelling. The passengers produce their Aadhaar cards shows the SMS (confirmation of reservation) or hard-copy of the
to the TTE, who verifies the UID on his reservation chart with reservation acknowledgement to the ticket examiner. Also he
that of the card. Alternatively, the passengers can also show the needs to show the Aadhaar card with which the ticket examiner
auto-generated SMS from their mobile phone, bearing all journey verifies the Aadhaar number and the photograph. Thus from the
details, as sent by the railway reservation portal. Also another verification point of view it can be confirmed that no passenger
point of checking can be the photograph of the passenger because can travel in the train providing false identity or wrongly
this time new reservation charts can be prepared with photographs personifying a genuine passenger.
of the passengers. The corruption regarding impersonation of Indian Railways Vision 2020 addresses the catering of
passengers can thus easily be avoided. Also the fraudulent excellent and hassle-free services to all passengers. This model
booking of touts/travel agents can also be avoided. Presently will leap a step ahead in this venture with the UID-based services.
these persons purchase bulk amount of tickets taking arbitrary [2]
names and ages. Later these tickets are sold to groups of persons
matching the age groups and one person per ticket travels
correctly, the other persons travel in false identity. 8. POSSIBLE DRAWBACKS OF THE PROPOSED MODEL
An example of such fraudulent booking in Table 1 will make this
clear:-
Basically, this proposed smart model approach for passenger
Table 1. Details of passengers (fraudulent) submitted at reservation
reservation system depends on some requirements, without which
counter
the benefits would not be fully enjoyed. This includes the UID
Reservation requisition form submitted at reservation counter registration of all passengers who needs to travel. Also it expects
Serial No. Name Age Sex that every passenger (at least one for each ticket) possess a mobile
1 S. BANERJEE 53 Male phone. Though this is not compulsory for all the passengers
2 P. ROY 41 Female booking through reservation counters. Also it is quite easier to
3 T. MANDAL 32 Male
4 B. SINGH 23 Male
implement a new system afresh, comparative to incorporating
5 R. AGARWAL 50 Male modifications to existing system. The huge domain of this
6 D. SAHA 19 Female reservation system, its zero-tolerance to break-of-service, and
The touts/fraudulent travel agents now sell the ticket (according scarcity of properly handled huge data repository could have been
to the passenger details in Table 1) to a group of five persons threats in introducing and implementing this system to the
bearing nearly the same ages and sex (shown in Table 2). At least existing one. Efficient searching and indexing operations are
one person per ticket is the same, as in this case S. Banerjee needed for fast query processing to actually offer the benefit of
(Male, 53) is the actual passenger. The others are travelling with the smart model.
false identity. In practice, it is very rare that the Ticket Examiner
asks for the Identity card of all the passengers. Even if it is asked,
the actual passenger shows his ID (which matches successfully 9. FURTHER SCOPE OF DEVELOPMENT AND EXTENDED
with the reservation chart) and the other passengers remain APPLICATION OF THE PROPOSED MODEL
undetected.
Table 2. Details of passengers actually travelling Using this UID-based technology, it is possible to decentralize the
task of reservation from booking clerks (in railway reservation
Actual passengers travelling in train counters) to automatic ticket vending machines (ATVM) also.
Serial No. Name Age Sex Since the unreserved tickets are already getting issued through
1 S. BANERJEE 53 Male
ATVMs, the reservation feature can also be implemented in the
2 P. RAY 43 Female
3 T. MONDAL 27 Male ATVMs. This could easily be done by linking the reserved
4 P. SINGH 26 Male accommodation of trains in the machines and by issuing
5 R. AGARWAL Male [6]
53 biometrically verified/PIN protected Smart Travel Cards.
6 B. SAH 20 Female
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Parag Chatterjee et al., International Journal of Advanced Trends in Computer Science and Engineering, 3(4), July-August 2014, 61-66
Alternatively, the biometric information can be registered at would be a leap forward in promoting this fast environment of
Smart Card counters, while issuing the smart cards. This can obtaining travel tickets.
easily remove some load from the existing PRS counters. The
passenger verification during journey time could also be made
against any authorized ID card (E.g. PAN card, Electoral Photo REFERENCES
Identity Card etc.) when Aadhaar card is not available for some
reason. This would not be a problem since the reservation charts [1] IT Audit of Indian Railways Passenger reservation System, Chapter 1
having photographs of the passengers (as extracted from UIDAI (Computerized Passenger Reservation System of the Indian Railways)
[7] [2] Indian Railways Vision 2020 (Para 6.1 Reinventing Passenger Services
database) would serve as the most secured way of physically with Change for a better tomorrow as the motto, Page 8-9)
verifying the travelling passenger. Also passengers would be able [3] Mari-Klara Oja, “Electronic Government in the age of Ubiquitous
to obtain reservation tickets from either of the railway counters, computing”, (4.4-Ubiquitous Transport Ticket, Page 51-60)
automatic ticket vending machines, or through online reservation. [4] Intel easy Steps – Online Railway Reservation
According to Vision 2020 of Indian Railways, “It will be our [5] Vikram Chopra, “The Unreserved Ticketing System of Indian Railways”
endeavor to see that no train traveller has to wait for more than 5 [6] Sinha et al., International Journal of Advanced Research in Computer
minutes for getting a ticket even in the unreserved category.” This Science and Software Engineering 3(8), August - 2013, pp. 543-548
[7] Resource Center, Unique Identification Authority of India
(http://uidai.gov.in/library/references.html)
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