The Hindu Business Line : To increase passenger revenue — Rlys to reallocate coaches based on occupancy patterns

IN ORDER to project profit this fiscal without increasing fares, the Indian Railways is aiming at 12 per cent growth in passenger earnings by reallocating coaches from trains with low occupancy to those having high waiting lists.

The zonal railways have been empowered to take decisions in this regard by studying the occupancy patterns of different trains operating under them, depending on their demands, which could also be seasonal, IR sources said here.

For this purpose, a new Management Information System software has been devised on the basis of daily occupancy data received from the computerised Passenger Reservation System all over the country, the sources said. The information system was providing data on a daily basis to see which train was going full, half-full or empty.

Out of about 1,400 major express trains, which carry the majority of the total 6,000 million passengers a year across the country, 250 trains had less than 15 per cent occupancy. There are 3,000 mail and other trains and another 3,000 local trains operating in the country.

The system was also being used to analyse the passenger profile of trains going in different directions, they said, adding that the profile of passengers going from Delhi to the eastern States was totally different from those that travel to the North or the West.

Based on these inputs, the sources said, the capacity of high-paying passenger trains such as the Rajdhanis and the Shatabdis would be augmented.

Giving an example, the sources said a few coaches of the Delhi-Jaipur Shatabdi Express were being attached during the summer months to Shatabdis connecting Punjab or the hill stations. The Jaipur Shatabdi would similarly get more coaches during winters when occupancy is higher.

With such operations, the IR would be able to augment capacity by at least 6.5 per cent as also its revenue by reducing the high waiting lists on other trains, the sources added.

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To increase passenger revenue — Rlys to reallocate coaches based on occupancy patterns