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The Railways on the Cyber Space " It is a new realization, a
new convenience and an absolute new utility " |
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The world's largest rail network, Indian Railways has contracted to the desktop. The epoch-making act of miniaturistion has been pioneered by
the Southern Railway and its partner in this mammoth venture - FrontPoint Systems. Along with 608 trains, 1400 stations, 902 stops and thousands of employees, the Southern Railway web site The Challenge The objective of the site was to make available At the functional level different types of queries and searches in real time such as ticket availability, list of trains, status of reservations, important announcements and all
those utilities, which in the past were accessible only by calling or physically going to the railway station. The project A detailed system study, which led to understanding the requirements of Southern
Railway, was done as the first step by forming a team of technical personnel from FrontPoint Systems as well as Railways. The systems study set forth the possibilities which were later examined by senior executives of
both organizations for feasibility considerations. Once the final layout the project and its phases were defined and approved, the timeframes were laid out so that both the organizations could make commitments. This is the
time when FrontPoint Systems proposed the idea of profit sharing to Southern Railway, terms and conditions of which was mutually agreed later. The project involved the conceptualisation, designing and hosting of the
entire Southern Railway web site. Other major considerations were integrating the existing legacy systems with the newer webenabled systems and on load-balancing the expected huge traffic. The web site was also required to
provide all other passenger related information such as cancellation rules, facilities in each station and such other data. FrontPoint successfully visualized, created and hosted the required web
site that delivered all the requests, and met all the specifications of the project proposal and design layout plan. Almost any search, that too in real time is possible on the site. The site is user friendly.
A highlight is an interactive map using which a passenger can identify which train to take between any two points in the region. For instance to travel from Chennai to Cochin one could click on the places and get the list of trains
that connects them. If there is no direct train, the search will suggest the nearest option followed by second and third options. The distance between the departure point and destination and the
fare are displayed. For each train the arrival and departure time at each station and the availability of dinner and lunch (with supply station and time) are also displayed. Concession forms, refund procedure and a host of
other utilities also could be accessed through the site. "Indian railways is as exotic as India itself. The traffic to the site is, hence from all over the world." says Mr. Sanjay Shroff, CEO of FrontPoint Systems. It has been an extremely challenging assignment in terms of programming and scope. It has taken more than 5000 man hours of effort. In the first 24 hours of its launch itself the site has captured a huge response of 0.15 Million visitors. Web site traffic analysis shows that the site is eliciting interest not just from the train passengers in India, but people from all over the world. Around 87 % of the traffic is from Asia,
9.6 from America and 2.6, balance traffic is from Australia and Africa. The Promise The Southern Railway web site is on its way to become a travel portal. FrontPoint Systems is in discussion with many
portals in the U.S. and also with Microsoft-owned Expedia.com for a possible tie up. In future once the WAP ( Wireless application Protocol ) comes in to wide use, one could access all the utilities through even a mobile phone. Two more utilities that are expected in the near future will make the site complete in terms of real time interactivity : Online Booking and Arrival/Departure of trains. Once the site is hooked to the National Train
Enquiry System (NTES) - one could track each train and find out the location of a train at any given point of time. In the mean time FrontPoint has also taken the challenge of providing the site in all south Indian languages, which
will be done in a few months time. We believe in the infectious enthusiasm of the top-brass of the Southern Railway "It will keep us going". |
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FrontPoint Systems Ltd |