THE Nigeria Railway Corporation (NRC) says the proposed introduction of electronic ticketing will curb racketeering in the rail system.

Mr Jerry Oche, the NRC Lagos District Manager, disclosed this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Thursday.

” Introduction of e-ticketing will curb the challenges of racketeering because it is an electronic means of getting ticket.

” I won’t tell you that racketeering is not happening, but what we do is that we investigate and discover where it’s coming from.

“Definitely, if we introduce the system, it will curb it because of the unique system involved, which makes it difficult to forge,” he said.

The district manager said that the corporation, in an effort to eradicate the menace of racketeering, had earlier changed the ticket from its former card-like form to the present one being used.

He said the corporation was not only planning for e-ticketing but also working towards providing internet services in the train, combined with GPRS to track the movement of trains at any point in time.

“In fact, we have lots of proposals concerning those projects from different stakeholders in the sector,” Oche said.

He said the development would bring advancement to the system and allow effective operations.

NAN reports that Mr Fidet Okhiria, Managing Director, NRC, had said that plans were underway to commence web-based ticketing for the Abuja-Kaduna rail line.

Okhiria said that the software concerning the project was being developed, and would reduce the challenge of overbooking of passengers.

“The management cannot be on the spot at all times; when the web-based ticketing starts, all the present challenges of tickets being oversold will be resolved.

“We are working on it seriously and we want to make sure it comes on board very soon,’’ he said.

The managing director said that the corporation was also developing software that would produce tickets that could be used for one week, rather than the present daily tickets being sold. (NAN)

– Feb.  22, 2018 @ 14:45 GMT |