NEW DELHI: Taking yet another step towards making train ticket reservation a pleasant experience, the Railways on Thursday announced introduction of ticket booking through mobile phones.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Limited (IRCTC) launched the e-ticketing facility, IRCTCmobile, in partnership with a U.S.-based company, C-SAM.

IRCTCmobile will operate on Java enabled handsets having GRPS connection. It has been developed by telecom expert Sam Pitroda and his company S-SAM, based on its patented Mobile Transaction Platform.

All registered users could download IRCTCmobile by sending SMS to the Corporation and it will send a WAP push message that will ensure downloading and installation of IRCTCmobile.

Credit cards

After this, the user could check the availability of tickets, book tickets using credit and debit cards, check fare and train details between two stations and even view the route of a train.

IRCTC Managing Director P.K. Goel said that with the proliferation of mobile phones, the new facility would enable the Corporation to reach out the masses further. IRCTC's association with C-SAM would ensure that the customer used a reliable, scalable and secure product that was designed to provide a booking experience similar to the existing web-based booking.

IRCTC would be available to all service providers, including telecom companies and banks.

I-tickets facility

The Railways has an I-tickets facility, under which tickets are delivered to the postal address given by the user.

The Railways had introduced issuance of platform tickets through SMS on an experimental basis in Bangalore and Delhi.

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