IRCTC contact less ticketing or QR Code Tickets: All you need to know

New Delhi : In the coronavirus pandemic spell, the authorities are planning things to ensure maximum possible contactless services and for this Indian Railways has decided to provide travellers with a QR Code enabled ticket. Till date, a ticket checker used to manually check tickets of the passengers in the moving trains mostly taking it in their hands, but the process is now getting transformed into airport like ticket check-in counters. Here is all that you should know about the new tickets from IRCTC.

What has changed in new train tickets?

As announced by the Indian Railways, the passengers who book ticket online or offline will get a SMS on their mobile numbers with a QR code in it. They will be asked to present the QR code to the ticket checker who will verify it from the available Railway database and do the needful.

"We have introduced a QR code system which will be given on tickets. If one buys online the code will be given on the ticket, even on window tickets, and SMS will be generated and sent on the mobile phone which will have a link and it will show the QR code when the link is touched. Then the TTE at stations or on trains who either with their handheld equipment or on their mobile phones will be able to scan the code and immediately capture details of the passengers," Railway Board chairman VK Yadav said at a press conference on Thursday.

Can the new QR Code ticket be booked only online?

While 85% of the tickets on Indian Railways are booked online these days, the authorities have announced that the QR code service will be applicable to the offline tickets as well. This has been done to ease travel by passengers who are not comfortable traveling with a digital ticket either because of choice or lack of equipments.

"It is not possible to shift completely to paperless ticketing across stations right now as there are still some passengers who do not use smartphones," Mr VK Yadav added.

When will the new ticketing rules be implemented?

The Indian Railways authorities have already started the process of using QR code scanning at one division at Prayagraj on a pilot basis, officials said.

"Airport-like check-in counters have also been made to minimize the exposure of our checking staff with the passengers," an official said.

"As a passenger enters the station premises, the QR code of his /her ticket will be scanned through a mobile app and this gets updated in the software’s database. The time of scanning the QR code also gets updated in the application…there will also be integrated checking kiosks with facilities for scanning the QR code of passenger tickets and thermal screening to get body temperature," the official said.

Any change in the ticket booking process?

So far, the booking process is the same and not much has been changed; but, there are plans to revamp the IRCTC website to further ease the process of booking tickets online.