New Delhi: In a bid to spread information about festival special trains among passengers who have travelled several times in particular states and cities during the past year, the Northern Railways, for the first time, conducted a survey and identified such commuters, and has been sending messages to inform them about special trains and arrangements.
Explaining about the survey and sending messages to passengers, Himanshu Shekhar Upadhyay, Chief Public Relations Officer, Northern Railway told ETV Bharat, “Railways has been running festival special trains but major people don’t aware about these trains following which they often try to book their tickets on regular trains but due to not availability of seats they have to drop their travel plan while unawareness about the special trains they don’t book their tickets for these trains.”
In the survey, the railway has noticed lakhs of passengers who had travelled several times from one particular state to another state in the past year.
Upadhyay said, “A survey was conducted to understand travel patterns of the people and history of passengers who have travelled in particular states and cities during the past one year. After getting survey’s inputs, the railway with the help of the Telecom department has been sending bulk messages to 50 Lakh such passengers to inform them about special trains’ facility and availability on their routes.”
“In the SMS message “Celebrate your festivals with your family” and other information is being mentioned. The railway is receiving good response of the SMSs and number of tickets bookings in special trains have increased now,” the CPRO said.
The Railway has been operating 7,000 special trains to accommodate 2 lakh extra passengers on daily basis to clear festival rush across the country.
Union Minister of Railways Ashwini Vaishnaw recently said railways is set to carry One crore passengers during the festive period from October 1 to November 30, deploying 7,000 Puja, Diwali and Chhath Special trains, a 60 percent increase from the 4,429 trains operated last year.
These trains include AC Specials, trains with a mixed combination of AC, Sleeper and General Coaches and also Unreserved Specials. These festival special trains are being run from various railway zones for different destinations across the country. These trains will be helpful to passengers to plan their journey so as to reach their destinations well in advance and celebrate festivals with their near and dear ones.
The bookings for these special trains have been opened by the railways and tickets can be booked by travellers as per their convenient dates, the officials said.
Read More
