SR gets 857 hand held terminals for onboard ticket checking

CHENNAI: Southern Railway (SR) has been allotted 857 Hand Held Terminals (HHT) for onboard ticket checking in its six divisions.

Aimed at simplifying on-board ticket checking, Hand Held Terminals (HHTs) were launched as a pilot project in Southern Railway on 31st December 2018. HHTs were put to use on an experimental basis on train no 12007/12008 Chennai – Mysuru – Chennai Shatabdi and train no 12243/12244 Chennai – Coimbatore – Chennai Shatabdi Express trains.

A statement said, Southern Railway has been allotted a total of 857 Hand Held Terminals. Of the 857, about 246 HHTs have been given to Chennai Division, 101 to Tiruchchirappalli Division, 98 to Madurai Division, 148 to Thiruvananthapuram Division, 140 to Palakkad Division and 124 to Salem Division. Over 800 have been deployed for on-board ticket checking in about 185 trains running in the zone. SR has proposed to profiliterate and introduce HHTs in many other trains in a phased manner.

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 HHTs have been used by TTEs for ticket checking.

HHT will facilitate prompt allotment of vacant berths in the course of journey and ensure greater transparency in allotment of berths. The paperless facility will help TTEs to get real-time information about accommodation falling vacant enroute and enable them to book tickets online in trains that have remote location facility. Remote location facility in a train is an arrangement where a portion of the seats are earmarked for intermediate stoppages/stations falling in the route of the train.