The Sri Lanka Railways (SLR) has taken a giant leap forward by fully digitalising its seat reservation system. Earlier, only around 40 percent of its seats could be reserved online or through the Telecom companies. In fact, some carriages were marked for this purpose, such as SCR (Second Class Reserved).
But this also led to a drop in revenue, as people gave up their journeys when this 40 percent threshold was exceeded on certain busy days such as long weekends when most people in Colombo want to get away from the City. However, with the full digitalisation of the railway booking process, and with it the opening of all seats on all long-distance trains to online or telephone bookings, the SLR is likely to experience a surge in bookings and by extension, revenue.
Even now, it is possible to travel on long-distance trains using an e-ticket, but this has to be printed at the embarkation station and shown to ticket inspectors at the departure and arrival stations and to onboard ticket checkers.
Under the new system, the entire process will be paperless, as the passengers will get a QR code to their smartphones which also doubles up as the ticket. Sri Lankans are used to the QR code system as a result of the fuel crisis – but the SLR has found an even better use for it. The time has indeed come to ditch the paper ticket – the famous hardboard ticket that has remained a part of the SLR for over 100 years. These are not found anywhere else in the world.
This does not mean that paper tickets have to fade away entirely – perhaps we can have a stored value paper ticket that can be topped up for train journeys. This also eliminates paper waste and printing costs. Season tickets too can be offered in this manner. Manned barriers at stations can also be eliminated if QR codes and stored value travel cards are used, as scanning these codes and cards at automatic turnstiles can give faster access to travellers to stations and trains.
This would also cut down on ticketless travel and ticket fraud. In fact, this system could be expanded to the State-run Sri Lanka Transport Board (SLTB), which apparently experiences a massive loss of Rs.10 million per day to both these phenomena.
The credit for modernising the SLR in this manner should go to Transport, Highways and Mass Media Minister Dr. Bandula Gunawardena and Transport and Highways Ministry Secretary Ranjith Rubasinghe. Under their guidance, the SLR also introduced the “Ella Odyssey” and “Seethawaka Odyssey” luxury trains, which have become highly popular among both local and foreign travellers alike.
This duo will be joined by the “Dunhinda Odyssey” to Badulla from April 5, the date that marks the centenary of train operations to his hilly city. The luxurious “Ella Odyssey” now regularly ranks as one of the top 10 train rides in the world, with tourists scrambling to get photographs and selfies at the famous Demodara Loop.
Once the Northern Railway track rehabilitation is completed, similar trains can be introduced to the Northern and Trinco/Batticaloa lines as well.
This still leaves one challenge – electrification of railway operations. In a sense, the trains are electric even now – the diesel engine provides electric motive power to the steel wheels. Hence the term diesel-electric. But we need to move the entire rolling stock operation to overhead electricity, as seen in other countries. The Main Line and Kelani Valley Line are two obvious candidates for electrification. Electric trains would be faster, smoother, less noisy and less polluting. Plans for the electrification of railways should be renewed once our economy achieves further stability.
But the Light Rail Transit (LRT) project in Colombo was slated to be built as an electric railway from the ground up. There is no question that the LRT project from Malabe to Colombo should be revived without delay.
The previous administration picked up an unnecessary row with Japan over the LRT, a cleaner, faster alternative to the private car. Who does not like the idea of coming to Colombo from Malabe in just 20 minutes, as opposed to nearly one hour by bus or private car? President Ranil Wickremesinghe and Japanese officials have indicated that both sides are keen to go ahead with the project, putting aside the differences.
There is another glaring anomaly with the SLR – the almost total lack of women personnel at the operational level – train drivers, Station Masters, Guards, ticket examiners, maintenance personnel and so on.
In most countries, including those in the developing world, both short and long distance trains are operated by women. The SLR should open its vacancies to qualified women, who will breach another glass ceiling if they are given railway jobs. In a country that already has many women pilots, it is a matter of regret that there are no women railway drivers and guards.
There are many projects that have to be completed once the economy improves, including the extension of the Southern line to Kataragama from Beliatta and the construction of Station Plazas, for which initial Expressions of Interest have already been called. Hopefully, with the new initiatives under way, the SLR will be able to enhance its revenue and operate as a profitable State-Owned Enterprise (SOE) that provides an even better experience to travellers.
