Now, Virtual Tickets accepted by Indian Railways – No need of physical printouts!
It is nice to see that Indian Railways is making life easier for Railway commuters – as well as for our environment. Imagine the number of trees that would have been needed to cut just for the Ticket Reservation printouts that lakhs of consumers carry on daily basis when they set-off on Indian Railways journey.
According to the announcement on IRCTC website – Commuters can now carry their Electronic Reservation Slip (ERS) virtually. What this essentially means is you can just show a screenshot of your e-ticket on any device and it will be treated as Valid.
Indian Railways calls it “Virtual Reservation Message” or VRM. So, if you have a mobile with camera that should be enough to create a VRM. Book your ticket online, take a snapshot using your mobile camera of the e-ticket and show it to Ticket Checker along with your Valid Identity Proof.
If you are carrying a Smartphone, it is even easier – you can login to internet and show your e-ticket itself!
Couple of months back, Indian Railways had also announced that it will launching a Mobile application that will make it possible for commuters to book the tickets on mobile itself. Once booked, the SMS sent out by the app will serve as a ticket itself and can be shown to the Ticket Checker along with your personal identification!
Personally, I am super-delighted with this development like millions of other Indian Railway Commuters. I travel Pune-Mumbai quite frequently on Deccan Queen. It has always been a pain carrying a printout. But now with a mobile in my hand I don’t have to worry at all!
Have you taken advantage of this “Virtual Reservation Message” or VRM already? If not, you should for your next train journey!
As I was carrying my aadhar card and reserved ticket photo which I reserved 4 day ago,is that enough or not,
But the ttr collected money again the same amount which I paid for the ticket
It’s the 3rd of January 2015
boarded MATSYAGANDA at mangalore with 2 confirmed and one waiting list.
Informed tt or tc whatever he is called and showed him the message irctc sent and he says e-ticket is not valid.
I suppose smart phones are not smart enough and neither are we
hi all can u give me the idea that for e-ticket id is necessary is phone number neccesary which we mention at time of e-ticket reservation pls. is id only enough pls?
What about the sms sent by website? Why wait for mobile application to be launched and coonsider its sms as valid.
https://www.irctc.co.in/VRM.htm
https://www.irctc.co.in/VRM.htm
Sounds good…. but I would still carry a printout.. for sometime atleast.
this a very useful info…thanks for sharing it bro. :)
I was as delighted by this news.! But unfortunately the sorry state of affairs is such that the TTE's have not been informed about this…
awesome…
good
nice :)
wow……
An sms send from irctc website worked . Tt didnt ask me hard copy . Its really helpfull ..
Good news is i’ve been travelling for past 3 weeks(weekends) by showing VRM as a valid ticket, but bad news is some of the lazy TTE’s are unaware this new rule(apparently they haven’t read the circular sent by IR :() and forcing us to pay fine 50 rs :(. But at the end the accepted with some doubts in thier mind after i argued with them for almost 5-10 mins. Even after this 2 times i was asked to pay fine and i accepted that, but gave a request to them to mention that i’ve showed mobile ticket(they didnt understand VRM term) in the slip :D and the result is his reply is, “will come back after checking with fellow TTE’s” :)
@manjunath,
Thanks for the update – and it is very much possible that many Ticket Checkers may not know the rule as yet. I think you should carry the printout of IRCTC announcement made and ask them to read, which is available on IRCTC website. That should definitely help!
But I agree, given the sheer size and number of TC’s, it will take time for everyone to get aware of it..
In ticket itself its mentioned that VRM is a valid proof(i showed them PDF copy of e-ticket), but those people are not accepting that and saying they didnt get any information from IR and IRCTC is different entity according to them :( According to one TTE(he is the first person i showed him the VRM and he accepted happily) they got seperate circular from IR during 1st week of September, even though IRCTC started this from somewhere in August :)
Hmm.. I was as delighted by this news as anyone else! But unfortunately the sorry state of affairs is such that the TTE's have not been informed about this. I was almost forced into paying a fine for not carrying a print out! Finally managed to convince him by showing him the notification on the website and news articles about it!
Jithin babu was asked to pay a bribe of Rs 50 by the TT. May be we have to carry a print out of this article!
WOW! Really That is great news sir. Atleast that many trees will save for our better environment.
Why do we need to show the ticket? The ticket details are with the TT always. Isn't showing ID Card enough? All we need to ensure is the TT puts a check against our name in his records.
Yah, an ID card with Photo should be sufficient. No need to carry type of ticket.. Indian Railways should seriously think of this idea !
just tried out my luck… the tt demanded 50 bucks as bribe if print out is not availiable… lol… luckily i hd the print out as back up
Did you tell him about the new rule? Because he should definitely know about it…
I like it.
At present a confirmation message comes in our mobile phone. I am sure the message with the ID card should also work
you can book ticket while tc is coming towards to you in train & there is no escape..
railways will have their cut.. & you will have freedom :/
This is helpful, but I think practically it won't make a feasible difference. Point to be considered is that most mobile phones used by masses in country don't have appreciable megapixel quality in the cells due to which taking a reasonable clear photograph from cell and showing it as a reference to T.Ts will be next to impossible. Also, we ought to consider that most mobile users don't have internet accessing capabilities on their cellphones. Hence introducing something like this will have more conflicts and fake ticketholders making lives of T.Ts miserable. One thing which can work is SMS to be accepted by Indian railways as authentic virtual tickets. Indian railways can possibly ask for mobile numbers also during ticket booking and automatically after booking an SMS shall be sent to all passengers which will serve as good as a ticket. That will surly help. However, this move of Indian railways seems more like an option to facilitate and woo the higher income group travelling through indian railways who can afford such costly handsets and want more flexibility in ticketing. This will help in the long run when connectivity in remote locations in India will improve and people will have higher internet and camera enables mobile phones.
Boss the article suggests that its not necessary to carry printouts and not that you have only to show it on your phone. If anyone does not have a smartphone or camera, the printout option is always there.
Pankaj Bisht : Agreed. I understand its a parallel option. But i emphasized that this new option would hardly make a difference for the general masses in immediate short term duration. It's another payment option. We cannot overlook the problems that introduction of such a system will create for railway ticket checkers..imagine the scale of problems and issues happening with some youngster who would show blurred click of his reservation ticket in his handset and T.C not able to identify the same clearly. It will lead to more problems than helping out in most cases. Besides, those who have purchasing power of smartphones/having connectivity will also be able to preferably afford getting a printout anyways. So who actually is Indian railways trying to help here ? They need to brainstorm more before coming up with such options. Just a perception.
In case of e-ticket the TT always checks for the ID card. The name of passenger is in the list with TT. If any person shows ticket and ID then I think it should not matter.
Second thing its not about printing e-tickets. Its about saving paper and trees. At least a few will not print and save paper.
That is a nice observation. btw, how about totally eliminating the tickets ? Why can't railways identify the passenger with his ID card only ? They can use a unique number to avoid duplicates.
Abhimanyu Sukhwal – Initialy it was. While booking e-ticket you have to provide an ID card and its number. I don't know why they removed it. Now you just have to show a Govt. Id card. This could have eliminated tickets.
nice :)
Ya its good we can save the time which is precious to us….
This is an interesting and nice step from IRCTC. It can also help us to save paper. This is also good because we never forget to take mobile with us, so no need to worry for our tickets. :-)
great – do you know which company is doing the work for this?
great – do you know which company is doing the work for this?
great – do you know which company is doing the work for this?
Dear @Mark speeks I will find out and let you know..
All thats there in a Ticket is your Name & PNR No. The PNR No. can be sent as a SMS to your phone on purchase of Ticket. The name can be confirmed with TT’s List & the ID Proof you carry.
Indeed very useful…as every time printing ticket and handling it is a mess…How great it would be if we can put everything on our smart phone or tablet…coz that’s one thing which we keep with us all the time.. :)
Why can’t they accept a simple SMS & ID Proof ??
Sandeep, Like I mentioned in the article – they are also launching m-ticket application which will work on SMS ticket itself..
You don’t need an Application for that.
Wow…this is a great step by IRCTC. I remember paying a fine once for not carrying a hard copy of my train reservation ticket.
Thanks Arun Prabhudesai for sharing this useful info.