Indian Railways TTEs will soon carry Palmtops with them in place of long Reservation Charts. A pilot project was launched in Shatabdi trains and upon success, Railway plans to introduce this scheme in all express trains.
The palmtops will be connected to the central server and enable the TTE to update the status of passengers who turn up for the journey.
It would reflect the status of available seats on a train across the railway network, which could be booked by any passenger willing to board it in at the next station.
The system developed by Centre for Railway Information System and to work in tandem with SIMRAN (which tracks real time movement of trains), will help railways earn extra revenues, claim officials.
Sources at Baroda House, the headquarters of Northern Railway, claim the process will stop the TTEs from charging arbitrarily for short distance bookings.