E-Ticket Replaces I-Ticket, M-ticket next?

By siliconindia   |   Tuesday, 17 January 2012, 00:22 IST   |    3 Comments
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Bangalore: In this tech era, e-tickets have become the new trend in railway ticket booking in India, which has over taken i-ticket recently. I-ticket is a process where you book your ticket online by a passenger, but is later printed by the Railways and gets delivered by courier.  But in e-ticket, the passenger can book it, print it and avail his journey by showing his ID proof; which is definitely a time saving and convenient option.

In 2002-03, when i-ticketing system was launched, it ruled the online booking space till 2004-05. In 2005, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) launched e-ticketing service. 2011 report states, out of the total online booked tickets in the year, only 0.4 percent were i-tickets while rest 99.6 percent were e-tickets. In 2008, 2.99 million i-tickets were booked online, and gradually it has fallen to 1.45, 0.86, and 0.45 million in 2009, 2010, and 2011 respectively.

E-ticket clicked the ramp vastly as it is much convenient and cheaper in terms of the ticket value. In i-ticket, one has to pay 40 extra whereas in e-ticket it is only 20 extra. I-ticketing takes a minimum of 2 days to deliver the ticket to the passenger, whereas in e-ticket, a passenger can get an instant printout of the booked ticket. i-ticket does not need an ID proof as it is being printed by the Railway department, but in e-ticket one has to carry an ID proof which is the one and only clause of inconvenience.

After e-ticket launch, i-ticket booking in the online space has reduced and fallen to 8.2 percent in 2008, 2.2 percent in 2009, 0.9 percent in 2010, and 0.4 percent in 2011, which is only 4.5 lakh bookings.

The service which now rules the online space was in controversy while launching, as some experts warned that this service may be misused. In July 2011, as a new development, the Railways have started to allow the screenshots of an e-ticket in mobile, laptops or tablets, rather than the print out. This new development may wipe out the e-tickets in near future as well as more than half of the nations are mobile users now. M-tickets may replace the e-tickets soon.

Not only booking tickets, but also paying electricity and gas bills, mobile recharge, or insurance premium payment – all have become easy with a new trend of online booking.