Western Railways website now offers facility of e-ticket through Indian Railways portal, a common platform for all online rail services. Along with e-ticketing the facility of mobile e-ticketing (reservation of ticket through mobile-m-ticket) will be introduced on Indian Railways portal. The Indian Railways portal for booking e-ticket can be reached through Berth/Seat Reservation option on homepage of www.wr.indianrailways.gov.in.
As a pioneer, m-ticket will be introduced on Indian Railways portal. It is a facility of getting e-ticket on mobile. Any mobile with internet facility can download m-ticket application from Indian Railways portal www.indianrailways.gov.in. Booking and payment can be made on mobile itself and an SMS containing ticket details will be sent to the user. This SMS is called the Mobile Reservation Message. The cost of sending the message will be borne by the Railways itself. The facility of getting m-ticket on mobile will be started shortly.
The service charge has also been reduced for booking e-ticket/m-ticket through Indian Railways portal. For sleeper class and reserved second sitting class service charge of only Rs.5/- per ticket will be applicable while for all other classes it is only Rs.10/- per ticket. Service charge is on per ticket basis, irrespective of number of passengers.
Making extensive use of technology for passenger convenience and for environment friendly transaction now virtual image of e-ticket is acceptable. A passenger can show the screen shot of e-ticket on his laptap/palmtop/Mobile Reservation Message instead of printed copy when demanded by ticket checking staff at station or in trains along with approved ID proof.
The new website hosted on Railways' servers, is more secure. To prevent misuse of e-ticket/m-ticket facility, as of now only individual users are allowed to book tickets through the portal. All types of agents viz RTSA, RTA, Web agents, web server agents are not permitted to book tickets through this portal. A maximum 8 tickets (PNRs) will be permissible per user ID per month. The facility of booking will be available round the clock except one hour between 23.30 hrs to 00.30 hrs.
Western Railway has been pioneer in implementation of various passenger friendly schemes formulated by Indian Railways. WR was one of the first few railways to implement scheme of upgradation and new website.