ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways had suffered losses worth over Rs 150 billion during the last three-and-a-half years’ rule of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government.
According to a document, in addition to an amount exceeding Rs130 billion in last three years, Pakistan Railways had a deficit of around Rs20 billion in the first half of the current financial year.
To control the deficit and earn more revenue, Pakistan Railways had introduced ‘Raabta’ — a platform for the improvement of its financial conditions. Raabta was essentially an attempt to enhance customer facilitation via artificial intelligence.
Around 60 million passengers have used Pakistan Railways annually, for which 40 percent of the tickets were sold using an outdated process without any audit, the document said.
To resolve this problem, Raabta allows customers to plan trips with the help of different options. Single interface customers can check train statuses, choose and purchase seats, book hotels, and order car rentals, meals, and refreshments.
Raabta also allowed passengers to lodge statuses during their journeys. They can book tickets through multiple platforms including mobile applications, websites, ticket agents, reservation officers, vending machines, and handheld devices, it added.
Furthermore, the platform also provided a freight and parcel booking system, a data center, third-party agreements, business intelligence, and reporting system, the document said.
The implementation of Raabta would incur zero costs to Pakistan Railways and the latter would get a fair share in ticket prices, freight, and value-added service.
Moreover, Pakistan Railways was trying to improve the punctuality of its trains and every train was being monitored and each of its detentions was reviewed and rectified. A mobile application called ‘Pakrail Live’ has also been launched for the real-time tracking of trains to facilitate passengers.