
The Kumbmela of Transport
The Indian Railways, a major integrating factor for over 150 years, form the backbone of India’s transportation system, providing affordable long-distance and local travel. Railways facilitate freight movement, commerce, tourism, and pilgrimage. As of March 2020, they operated 12,729 locomotives, 76,608 passenger vehicles, and 2,93,077 wagons across 7,325 stations with 67,956 km of routes. While aiding economic growth, challenges persist, including outdated ticketing, privacy issues, crowd management, theft, and unchecked luggage leading to higher costs. The ground research for the project stemmed from our visit to Rani Kamlapati Railway Station (India's first world-class model station, developed under a public-private partnership by the Bansal Group) via a general coach journey from Ahmedabad. To address these, we propose implementing a technology similar to Europe’s one-card system, tailored to India’s needs. This would reduce operational costs and benefit both Indian Railways and passengers.
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Semester 5 - Group Project (Vanshita Patel, Tulsi Thakkar, Tanmay Shelar, Srushti Patil, Sharvi Shah, Disha Agarwal, Aaranya Adak)

Why this Topic?
Introduction
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Keywords
Transportation System, Privacy Issues, Crowd Management, Operational Costs, Economic Growth


Research Question
In what specific ways can the Indian Railways address the unorganized ticketing system, reduce unnecessary paper consumption, and manage the challenge of excess passenger luggage, while also improving overall travel convenience and operational efficiency for both passengers and staff?
What?
Concept Development




How?
Conclusion
To address issues like ticketless travel and overcrowding, we’ve designed a card that passengers register for and carry on each journey, streamlining the entire process and helping reduce congestion.

How?
Conclusion
I (Vanshita Patel) and Disha Agarwal further prototyped a part of the solution and were able to connect Google Sheets to get the details of every card being scanned.

