Passengers need information on schedules, fares, platform allocations, etc. besides online ticketing services to plan their journeys. Indian Railways provides access to both information and ticketing services via digital support channels (contact center, app, website) and offline support channels (help desk, platform staff, electronic departure screens).Still, the travel planning experience is not as simple and convenient as it should be. We believe growing app fatigue, poor UX of the ticketing site on mobile, and rising popularity of messaging apps offer an opportunity to enable better efficiencies, experiences, and engagements for train travelers. Something chatbots can accomplish.With bots, user adoption is a non-issue. Over a billion people already using messenger apps will be able to access them easily. Growing app fatigue too works in bot’s favor. Given the scenario, adding bots to the existing customer support mix will soon be essential.

The solution must offer a simpler, more engaging UX than one currently delivered on site/app. And, we believe Chatbots are ideal. They can deliver engaging and personalized travel experiences to millions at an affordable cost. Mobile and Messaging are the most popular technologies today. And, chatbots lie at the confluence of these two platforms.We proceeded to act on our belief. We leveraged our expertise in AI and Microsoft technologies to build a powerful Chatbot. Our intent was to demonstrate to Indian Railways Community how chatbots deliver a more immersive and engaging travel experience while positively impacting the entire IR system.

The bot is currently active. Over 100K users have already interacted with the IR chatbot since its launch in late 2016 and the usage is showing month-on-month growth. The potential audience for the chatbot is a whopping 23 million passengers/day.Most of these commuters already seek information and ticketing services via desktop or mobile channels as is seen from the 1 million+ visits the ticketing site receives daily, and the 5 lakhs+ tickets booked on the portal each day.We will seek a partnership with Indian Railways to enable more self-service use cases and to reduce the need for a handover to other ticketing/support channels to fulfil user intent (example, enabling bookings with Facebook payments).We will also define and track KPIs for each defined user intent. By tracking KPIs, we will uncover errors and optimization opportunities that will help us keep our chatbot on track for success.