MUMBAI: Railway authorities have come across a new modus operandi adopted by unscrupulous commuters who, guided by a website that lists names of stations and their QR codes, have managed to bypass the geo-fencing system to book mobile ticket even from inside a train.
Railway’s UTSonmobile is a GPS-based app that uses geo-fencing to demarcate physical territory. Tickets can be booked only if the smartphone user is at least 20 metres away and within 5km of a requested boarding station. The system uses the phone’s GPS coordinates. This system has been designed in a way to ensure commuters do not book tickets after entering the ticketing area, including the train.
An unidentified person, however, has developed a website providing PDF links containing QR codes of every suburban station, thus allowing commuters to bypass geo-fencing. It allows a passenger to book ticket from anywhere if he/she spots a Train Ticket Examiner (TTE) by simply scanning the QR code from website. To ensure booking is done from the boarding station, UTS app does not allow scanning of QR code images from mobile’s photo gallery, but some have found a fix for this too. They ask co-passengers to take a picture of the QR code after opening the link of the station. They then scan the QR code from the co-passenger’s screen and complete the booking.
A senior Western Railway official said, “We came to know about this modus operandi after a relative of an employee who travels by train noticed this practice in locals.”
Another official said, “We have observed that this practice is rampant in air-conditioned trains which have vestibule coaches, which allows commuters to get end-to-end view of at least six coaches in BHEL rakes.”
The official said a TTE takes at least 5 minutes to complete checking in one coach which is sufficient enough time for a ticketless traveller in an adjoining coach to book a ticket. Some passengers also travel with photocopies of QR codes of a few enroute station to complete booking by bypassing the geo-fence lock. Railway officials have flagged the issue to the ministry, which is likely to come out with some steps to prevent this malpractice.
Another official said the only solution to this problem is to provide dynamic QR code which keeps changing every few minutes, instead of the existing system of static QR code whose images can be circulated for scanning easily.
Railway’s UTSonmobile is a GPS-based app that uses geo-fencing to demarcate physical territory. Tickets can be booked only if the smartphone user is at least 20 metres away and within 5km of a requested boarding station. The system uses the phone’s GPS coordinates. This system has been designed in a way to ensure commuters do not book tickets after entering the ticketing area, including the train.
An unidentified person, however, has developed a website providing PDF links containing QR codes of every suburban station, thus allowing commuters to bypass geo-fencing. It allows a passenger to book ticket from anywhere if he/she spots a Train Ticket Examiner (TTE) by simply scanning the QR code from website. To ensure booking is done from the boarding station, UTS app does not allow scanning of QR code images from mobile’s photo gallery, but some have found a fix for this too. They ask co-passengers to take a picture of the QR code after opening the link of the station. They then scan the QR code from the co-passenger’s screen and complete the booking.
A senior Western Railway official said, “We came to know about this modus operandi after a relative of an employee who travels by train noticed this practice in locals.”
Another official said, “We have observed that this practice is rampant in air-conditioned trains which have vestibule coaches, which allows commuters to get end-to-end view of at least six coaches in BHEL rakes.”
The official said a TTE takes at least 5 minutes to complete checking in one coach which is sufficient enough time for a ticketless traveller in an adjoining coach to book a ticket. Some passengers also travel with photocopies of QR codes of a few enroute station to complete booking by bypassing the geo-fence lock. Railway officials have flagged the issue to the ministry, which is likely to come out with some steps to prevent this malpractice.
Another official said the only solution to this problem is to provide dynamic QR code which keeps changing every few minutes, instead of the existing system of static QR code whose images can be circulated for scanning easily.
