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Most Innovative Project : Indian Railways : 139 Rail Sampark

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PCQ Bureau
New Update

The idea behind this project was to establish an Integrated Train Enquiry

System, which would replace all discrete railway telephonic enquiries

functioning over various railway divisions and stations. The ITES would provide

a global enquiry that can give same information across the country.

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Earlier Indian Railways was operating numerous telephonic enquiries all over

the country which were manned by railway staff. These enquiries provided limited

information pertaining to stations under their jurisdiction. Also face-to-face

inquiries were not very user-friendly when it comes to status of arrival and

departure of trains through stations under their jurisdiction.

Rajni Hasija



Group General Manager

Q What new services we can expect with 139 in future ?



In the coming months we plan to introduce information about trains affected
during monsoons in Mumbai region and Information about platforms at 139

under basic enuquiry services. Under Value added services we plan to

introduce Dial a Taxi service and booking of hotels and rail tourism

products.

Q Plz comment on the innovation used in the project 139 ?



In my opinion the most innovative part is that it is a "Single number
solution for train enquiry over voice and SMS with all telecom services

providers" with tiered archietecture and customized software to meet

business requirements at zonal hubs and regional call centers.

QWhat were the challenges you faced in implementing the project ?



A major challenge was to make this enquiry system acceptable. A paradigm
shift was needed in the mindset of railway users who were until then

accustomed to the traditional manual face to face inquiry only. What they

were going to get was a highly sophisticated Integrated Train Inquiry System

which offered a lot more than just plain arrival departure status/PNR

status, etc. Another challenge was the migration from railway inquiries

manned by railway staff to IVR through the global number 139 in a phased

manner and closure of all IVR based isolated railway enquiries operated by

various zonal railways as well as training of 2000 agents of railway inquiry

franchisees to handle manual queries at the call center.

The project provided an integrated railway inquiry all over the country

through a unique number (139) which is a category-I code as defined by DoT and

is accessible from anywhere on all landline/mobile/WLL phones irrespective of

TSP, without dialing the STD code. Both manual and IVRS enquiries of this

enquiry system obtain information online from the already existing computerized

National Train Enquiry system and Passenger Reservation System of Indian

railways. For IVR railways choose Nortel CS-1000 exchange with Nortel MPS 1000

IVR solution and it has been integrated with Oracle/Sybase databases and

back-end PRS and NTES application using Nortel development platform.

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Railways faced various challenges in implementation of this project, first a

paradigm shift was needed in the mindset of railway users who were until then

accustomed to the traditional manual face to face enquiry only. Another

challenge was smooth migration to IVR through the global number 139 in a phased

manner. Also railways had to provide training to 2000 agents of Railway Enquiry

franchisees to handle manual queries at the call center. Technically, the

biggest challenge for railways was synchronisation of NTES (National train

enquiry system) data at four locations in the country and replication of Sybase

platform to Oracle database of ITES.

Company Scenario
Before Deployment
  • Indian Railways was operating numerous telephonic enquiries all over

    the country which were manned by Railway staff.
After Deployment
  • A unique number accessible all over the country, from landlines and

    mobiles without STD, that provides all information such as PNR status,

    train arrival, departure , etc.

Implementation Partner

Kapil Puri and Dilip Modi,



Bharat BPO
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The setup is currently handling around 6 lakh calls per day and is capable of

handling upto 20 lakh calls per day and Railways claims that the system is

capable of handling a daily call volume of upto 20 lakhs. Under this project,

Indian Railways has also started dial-a-ticket services to help people buy rail

tickets on the move. Recently, allotment of short code 139 for SMS services and

opening of the same by all telecom services providers has been done. SMS

services started on all telecom services providers except Reliance and BSNL.

Railways has also developed 'Knowledge Bank' at each RCC to help agents cope up

with data related to various incidents / situations / happenings to answer its

callers in an optimal way.

With this project a major business benefit to Railways has been in the form

of cost saving and gainful deployment of enquiry staff rendered surplus as a

result of closure of manual enquiries.

While social impact that 139 will have is quite obvious, many of you might be

wondering why it has been awarded in the Ingenuity Category. Well this is

because the jury liked the innovation done by railways in the business model of

139. Indian Railways has outsourced to Bharat BPO and a significant part of the

latters earnings comes by sharing revenues with TSPs on incoming calls for 139.

It is not a toll free number as of now, but there have been talks that the new

Railways minister might make it toll free. Wonder what innovations will happen

then? Maybe will see a different business model emerge!

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