Identification of small stations with popular areas and cities is set to become easier now with Indian Railways throwing up prompts for not only the railway station but also popular areas surrounding the station when a passenger books their journey.
For instance, the tourist area of Sarnath is merely 10 km away from Varanasi. So now when one tries to look up Sarnath as a tourist spot, options for Sarnath being linked to Varanasi station will be thrown up while booking railway tickets on website and mobile app. Similarly, Sabarmati, which is popularly known as Mahatma Gandhi’s residence and ashram has been linked to Ahmedabad.
As many as 175 popular cities and areas have been mapped with 725 stations, an Indian Railways spokesperson said. “This new approach would yield better planning of journey and for tourists it will ease station search. Also satellite cities have been connected to railway stations – for example, Noida to New Delhi,” the spokesperson said.
The functionality will provide ease of communication in case of change in station due to operational reasons, for example, if a scheduled station is changed due to operational or maintenance activity – journey planner will show alternate station in search:
For instance, Train 19031 [Ahmedabad to Jaipur] is planned from Asarva instead of scheduled station Ahmedabad. Asarva will be shown in the journey planner on input Ahmedabad – currently this activity is done manually. This facility will be available from July 21 onwards.
These changes have been incorporated in the journey planner station search of e-ticket booking website.The functionality shall be displayed on the journey planner and electronic reservation slip of the ticket.
