Adopting an innovative approach, Indian Railways will be linking popular areas with the stations' name for passenger convenience.

This new approach is expected to boost tourism and lead to better planning of journeys.

The facility would be available from 21 July and with this, identification of small stations with popular areas/cities is expected to be easy, with personalised passenger experience in ticket booking on the website and the Mobile app.

With the latest offer, the Railways will prompt not only the station but is expected to also identify the right place while planning a journey.

Small stations are linked with popular cities/areas: Sarnath has been linked with Banaras, Sabarmati has been linked with Ahmedabad, Panvel has been linked with Mumbai etc.

It would also entail linking of satellite city to connecting railway stations like Noida to New Delhi. Currently, 175 popular cities/areas have been mapped with 725 stations under the scheme and more tourist places are expected to be linked with the names of stations.

Sometimes, local/popular names are different from railway station names leading to confusion. Hence, it would also facilitate tourists as stations' search will get easier and will enable better connectivity will be available for passengers.

The Railways said in a statement, "In order to accomplish the objective, application changes in technology have been done and 175 popular city/area have been linked with 725 stations. These changes have been incorporated in the journey planner station search of the e-ticket booking website. The functionality shall be displayed on the journey planner and electronic reservation slip of the ticket."

It would provide ease of station search for tourists, such as places of tourist importance like Kashi, Khatu Shyam, Badrinath, Kedarnath, Vaishnodevi etc. mapped to nearest station.

Popular city name associated with a railway station gives a sense of pride and ownership to the citizens, leading to regional importance and pride for citizens.

The functionality will provide ease of communication in case of change in station, due to operational reasons such as if a scheduled station is changed due to operational/maintenance activity — journey planner will show alternate station in search.

ticket booking application

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