CRIS has been instrumental in aiding IR while making management decisions. With careful scrutiny of the requirements of projects, railway personnel and IT professionals are selected that are meritorious and have the ability to change the face of customer services and transfigure railway operations. The need for a widespread railway transport network is increasing daily with the growth in population. IR, with the help of CRIS, tirelessly works towards providing subsidized transport along with security and comfort while traveling. The applications created by CRIS directly affect daily operations of railways. These applications have made the entire process of booking a ticket, procuring the ticket, commencing the journey, and dropping off at the destination station very simple and efficient. Everything ranging from checking the train times to ordering food through e-catering services can be found online. This is possible because of applications such as ICMS (Integrated Coach Management System) and NTES (National Train Enquiry System).
ICMS
- Integrated Coach Management System refers to the management within the coaches that are present in the arriving train. This type of management comes within the coach during the journey of the passenger. There are millions of customers that book train tickets and expect a coach which has an adequate seating arrangement for them. To meet the objective of customer expectation more than 50,000 coaches have to be tracked by the IR day and night.
- A sufficient coach fleet must be dispatched to meet the requirements of the customers and minimize any chances of customer dissatisfaction. Many times, the coaches are deployed according to the demand and consumer traffic in certain places. There have been many instances when cross-country trains have become popular and there has been a need for increasing the number of coaches. For example, in urban rail transit systems, when the rush hour traffic is maximum, 15 coaches are deployed as opposed to the usual 12 coaches.
- An important objective of this system is to efficiently assign the coaches to the trains to increase the number of services for customer benefit. Along with efficient management, comes the idea of maintenance and timely servicing of the assets. This is where the technology comes in. The application that is designed for this purpose includes delivering historical records from past years in printed report formats, or up to date information to the official’s cell phone depending upon the need.
NTES
- NTES is a crucial part of ICMS that is designed and implemented by CRIS. It is more of a feedback and troubleshooting application to help with customer care services.
- IR works ardently for the welfare of passengers and makes all efforts of running passenger trains as per the designated schedule and timings. However, sometimes this punctuality is compromised for reasons beyond IR’s control such as climatic conditions. In times like these, the trains are delayed, rescheduled from their starting stations, diverted to another route, or canceled which ultimately caused a difference in the departure and arrival timings.
- NTES has been developed with the sole objective of informing passengers about the train’s journey and help them track the arrival and departure of the train at every station.
