Mobitel extends mTicketing to railway warrants
View(s):State-owned celco Mobitel recently added a new service called mWarrants, an extension to its previously introduced mTicketing platform for purchasing train tickets. Through this new service, government employees can now reserve their train tickets much ahead of time, against their railway warrants.
According to Mobitel’s statement; “By simply dialing 365 on their Mobitel phone, government employees can reserve their train tickets by providing the details of their warrants and immediately receive a reference number from Mobitel. Upon producing the special reference number along with the warrant at any mTicketing service counter, passengers can collect their reserved tickets without any hassle”.
Further, the statement also added; “In the past, government employees received their railway warrants 14 days prior to their travel date. However, with the mWarrants service, government employees now have a 45-day period, in which they can plan their travel and reserve their train tickets accordingly. At the time of reservation, the respective railway warrant does not have to be in hand – a mention of when it will be received can be communicated via 365 and a reservation will be made accordingly”.
Meanwhile, the celco’s statement also quoted B.A.P. Ariyaratne, General Manager of Sri Lanka Railways, as saying; “There is an emerging demand for this new service for ticket reservations. It is to meet this demand that we collaborated with Mobitel four years ago when we first launched our pilot project. This service has grown immensely over the years, and we have even shifted the times for advance train ticket bookings from midnight to 10am – to make it more convenient to passengers. The mWarrants scheme now allows us to also serve government employees, and provide them with greater flexibility in terms of planning their travel… Some 35,000-40,000 warrants are issued each month and therefore the demand for the new mWarrant system will be significant. These figures further increase during school vacation”.