Railway Feedback System_by _Mohit Rastogi _VGSOM_IIT_KGP

8/8/2019 Railway Feedback System_by _Mohit Rastogi _VGSOM_IIT_KGP

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Development of a robust feedback

mechanism for onboard passenger

amenities in Indian Railways toimprove passenger satisfaction and

service standards.

Prepared

By

Mohit Rastogi

Candidate for MBA – Class of 2012

Vinod Gupta School of Management

IIT Kharagpur

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Acknowledgement

I do like to acknowledge the contribution and support provided by many people

without which I would have not been able to come up with this paper.

First of all, I would like to acknowledge Dr. Prithwis Mukerjee, Professor, Vinod

Gupta School of Management, IIT Kharagpur to provide me the motivation and

opportunity to think beyond the regular course work and challenge the boundaries of

my own comfort zone.

I would also like to acknowledge my colleagues in MBA program, Col. GSP Raju and

Col. Girijesh Pandey for their constructive and critical feedback on the idea. They

were critical in thir feedback about the idea which helped me to improve upon the

basic concept and think rationally and remove anomalies.

I would also like to thank the unknown railway employee who came to get my

feedback on a form on my journey from Delhi to IIT Kharagpur.

The lastly I thank the my parents and IIT to provide me the services and facilities

needed to think rationally and constant motivation through the environment and

competitive atmosphere.

Regards,

Mohit Rastogi

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Abstract:

In this era of intense competition and organizations spending a major portion of their

revenues on studying consumer behaviour and taking steps to increase customer

satisfaction, it becomes imperative for Public Sector organizations like Indianrailways to introspect and take steps in such direction. Indian railways is focussing

on core competencies and outsourcing most of the allied services like catering,

cleaning and things like that, there is an emerging need to have an effective

feedback system to address the issue of negligence and most importantly to place

an effective quality control where citizens of India can play a significant role. The

paper focuses on the development of such a system, through integration of existing

technologies and the methodology as to how the resulting product can be used for

the improvement data collection, interpretation and effective way to have a control

mechanism which is robust in its design and would discourage corrupt practices and

increase in service standards.

The technology basically talks about the integration of an interactive module unit

connected to the intranet of railways and would be placed in every coach of trains.

The data collected in the unit would be transferred to a RDBMS system which can be

later mined to generate reports and take managerial actions.

Introduction:

India is a growing economy and aspires to become a superpower by 2020. There is

much which needs to be done in terms of improving the infrastructure and services.

Railways form an important part of national infrastructure and means of transport for

passengers and freight. Passenger comfort and quality of services of Railways have

always been in question and its difficult to track and monitor the services in long

distance trains and trains which are generally overloaded. A lot of taxpayer’s money

is spent in improving the services and expansion of railway network. Indian railway

from past many years has started outsourcing a lot of non- core service related

activities like cleaning, food services, pantry services in addition to travel agents andauthorized railway reservation counters. There are mechanisms to monitor the

services provided by contractors and it is done on a regular basis by the railway

officials. There are also mechanisms in place to get the feedback of passengers

through a written form which is done a random sampling basis. However, the

practice is not prevalent in all the routes and trains. The main objective of this paper

is to make the process of feedback more transparent and ensure accountability in

case of malfunctioning. The proposed strategy provides a comprehensive solution

for improving services, generating a database for comparison and quality

comparison in addition to empowering the travellers to take charge of national

development and put a stop on corrupt practices if any.

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It also aims towards the implementation of performance based payment to the

contractors to ensure high standards of quality and stop misuse of public money.

Background:

Currently Indian railways boast of well organized Public grievances redressal

machinery. Complaint books are kept with station masters, in waiting rooms and are

also available with guards in running trains. Passengers are free to take their

complaints to the additional divisional railway mangers at division level and

additional general manager at zonal level.

There are several promises made and money being spent on improving the services

and amenities for passengers. According to the budget presented by the Railway

Minister of India there are provisions of Rs 1302 crores to be spent for this purpose.

In addition to it the minister categorically also mentioned about the complaints about

the catering services and the revision of catering policy.

Also the minutes of meeting of IRCTC with the stakeholders held on 26 th March 2010

focussed on the fact that the passenger amenities in the trains are not as per highest

standards and need much improvement in food services and passenger amenities.

The rise in number of complaints has forced railways to take catering business away

from IRCTC resulting in a loss of revenues in the order of 400 crores per annum for

IRCTC. The decision however does not guarantee about improvement in servicesand assumes that mere change in the service provider would improve the quality.

Although there are complaint registers and office bearers who are identified to

address passenger complaints but practically it becomes impossible for passengers

to go and meet the railway officials for small grievances and often they are

overlooked. The reason for such behaviour is mainly lack of time and non-user

friendly feedback system.

The use of internet has also not been very fruitful as internet access is not available

to a large population of travellers and also those who have access are either notaware or lose interest about feedback after the journey has been completed.

The paper has its basis in developing a model of an effective and robust feedback

mechanism which functions like a check on service providers and ensures direct

accountability of erroneous persons and organizations.

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Figure 1.0 below depicts present feedback system in its most elementary form.

As depicted in the above picture, in the current system of feedback the management

decisions are not guided by the passenger input and are more influenced by political

environment and lobby of contractors. The output of the decisions also often gets

unrecorded and there is no robust mechanism to evaluate the implication of

decisions on the satisfaction of customers (In this case railway passengers). This

drawback of the system is also responsible for inefficiency and slow response to

problems.

We can see on the various online consumer forums that there are hundreds of

dissatisfied travellers who want to get their complaints heard and are willing to

contribute their substantial amount of time for writing to authorities, but in absence of awareness and non-availability of user friendly feedback system many of the

complaints go unnoticed and system lives with inefficiency for years and years.

Proposed Framework:

The proposed solution to achieve total transparency in feedback mechanism and

ensuring accountability is based on the amalgamation of two highly effective tried

and tested technologies of RDBMS and electronic voting machines. The proposed

idea is to integrate the two technologies to record, transfer, and store and analyze

data to take informed and fast decisions.

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Onboard feature of the feedback system ensures that the information recorded is

first hand and true. The authenticity and location, where the service default has been

committed is equally important as the nature and level of default. The figure 2.0

shows an elementary concept of a data entering machine.

a)Recording of data:

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1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

Indian Railway Service Feedback

System

भारतीय र ेल सवेा िपितकया पणाली

Chosen service

िपितकया ेि लए च ुना

Active

Inactive

Service 1

Service 4Service 3

Service 2

Service

Selection

panel

Speaker

Digital Display

Figure 2.0

Display showing

the selected

service



Data recording would be similar to the concept used in the electoral voting machines

in India manufactured by BEL. There are certain changes proposed in the interface

of the machine to suit the needs of railways and eliminate chances of fraud.

The only authorized persons to enter data into the system would be the passengers

travelling on genuine tickets in their respective class of coaches. Each passenger

travelling on a train would be issued a six digit unique no along with the ticket. In

case of more than one passengers travelling on a single PNR, each passenger

would be issued a separate six digit number. The number provided would be the

access code to enter data in the feedback machine installed in every coach. The

machine would be interactive and would ask for the feedback of passengers about

various services. Passengers can rate the services on a scale of 0 to 10 as per their

evaluation. The collected data would be synchronized with railway servers having

information about train running and personnel on duty. Data thus collected would be

directly transferred to the central locations and synchronized with the other relevantdata.

b)Storage of data:

The data storage is an integral and important part of the designed system which is

as far as now left at the discretion of Railways as per their requirement. The data

may find its place in RDBMS (relational database management system) where it

would be stored in a logical manner and minimize on storage space. The scope of

paper is limited to introduction of the feedback mechanism and its working so the

RDBMS concept has not been explained in detail here.

c) Data integration:

Data integration of the recorded data with the train running information and persons

on duty would give a holistic view on the service mishaps happened. The data would

also be integrated with the record of service providers and their credentials. Data

integration would be done on a real time basis and updated constantly. The

integration would help in rating the contractors and railway zones or divisions on the

basis of their performance on the feedback system. This would create a healthy

competition among them and would lead to overall improvement of services.

d)Data Mining and analysis:

Data thus collected through the feedback mechanism can be analysed qualitatively

and used to rate the service providers for quality. The data can also be used to keep

a check on non-performing employees of railway, who are negligent towards their

duties and at the same tie reward those who have shown commitment and high

performance.

The data would find its usefulness in allocation of resources towards development of

facilities pertaining to passenger amenities in and around stations which score low

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on passenger amenities. It would also be possible to track the routes which are not

serviced properly and need immediate attention. Data would be especially helpful in

creating performance based contracts which would enable and empower railways to

maintain high standards of quality.

Since the data is being stored in a RDBMS, it may also allow the general public to

see the data in real time through use of web based browsers and they can track the

actions being taken on their complaints via internet.

The figure 3.0 depicts the methodology in pictorial form with excellence at its core

objective.

Figure 3.0

Implementation:

Implementation of the system is daunting task and should be carried out in a phased

manner starting with long distance trains where passenger amenities are a major

issue. The implementation would mainly consist of following steps in the order of

their appearance. These steps are not exhaustive in nature and have many sub-

activities under each step.

a) Preparation of requirement document and design of system.

b) Feasibility of its integration with current data transfer systems.

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c) Finalization of data servers and data capturing module manufacturers.

d) Identification of pilot routes.

e) Training of railway staff about the process and its implications.

f) Awareness campaign for the passengers.

g) Launch of facility.

Financial feasibility:

The costs incurred on procurement, installing and operating the machines can be

recovered through the penalty charges on the service providers and increased

revenues on account of increased customer satisfaction. The mechanism would alsohighlight the inefficiencies within the system and further aid to cost reduction.

The motive behind this kind of a feedback system is to improve upon the services

and attract the passenger traffic which has shifted to air travel in search of comfort

and would have preferred to take trains if only they were more comfortable.

Limitations of the system:

The system has certain limitations in terms of technical operations and managerial

implications. The system requires power support to function properly anduninterrupted network connection which would connect it to the central data storage

server. The system would be susceptible to virus attacks and chances of tampering

with the system cannot be ignored.

The lobby of railway contractors and employee union may oppose the move as it

involves levying penalty charges for inefficient service and identifying erring

employees. The database would be huge and costs can be enormous if not

managed correctly in a professional manner. The design of database structure

needs to be changed with growing needs of the passengers and services offered by

railways. The design of data capturing unit module can be a factor to limit the varietyand no of responses it can handle in a certain period of time.

Additional burden on the already subsidized passenger fares until the system starts

giving benefits in terms of reducing inefficiencies and improvement in services.

Summary:

The system talked about in the paper would revolutionize the railway industry as it

would bring transparency in the contract award mechanism and is in line with the

motive of Indian government to achieve more transparency through acts like RTI( Right to Information).

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The feedback system would ensure highest standards of services and create

database for making right and informed decisions by the railway management. It

would also pave the way for competitive bidding process coupled with minimum

guaranteed quality and public evaluation.

The access code issued with tickets would ensure genuine feedback at the right time

which in turn would help in more focussed efforts for resource allocation and

corrective actions.

As railways is largest employer of world with more than 1.6 million employee

strength and more adding daily. It is the backbone of Indian transport industry and

Indian infrastructure as a whole. The model would ensure fair tracking of individual

mistakes in an environment of collective responsibility and on the other hand the

competitive spirit among the divisions and zones would increase the team spirit and

employee motivation in general.

The system if implemented successfully would empower the general public to make

sure that their money is being spent in an effective manner and they have a right to

make a change in the system if they are not satisfied with the services.

Way Forward:

The system once implemented can be a source of useful information for many

industries. The data thus captured can be later integrated with the UID (Unique

Identification Number) to identify and see the responses of frequent travellers. The

data can also be sold to insurance agencies and travel agencies who would like to

get in touch with such travellers.

The system once successful in passenger amenities can also be extended to include

onboard ticketing systems wherein passengers would be able to buy tickets for

onward journey while travelling. It can also be extended to include passenger

suggestions about the improvement in services however it may require a different

interface.

Government of India is on the path of privatization of many public sector enterprises

and the day may not be far off when it may realize the need to privatize some

sectors of railway and then the usefulness of such a system would be enhanced

enormously to keep a check on the quality of services and address public

grievances.

Ministry of railways has allocated a huge sum of money to improve the amenities for

passengers and is committed to develop a world class infrastructure in years to

come. With India aspiring to become a superpower and potential to become a major

tourist destination for the western world and the proposed system can have a major

role in improving the revenue generation through passenger services. Over the

period of time, with increasing salaries and high spending power, railways would

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eventually take off the subsidy on passenger travel. The passengers then would be

more educated and would demand value for their money. To achieve this objective

and keeping futuristic outlook of next 20-25 years the feedback system would prove

to be instrumental.

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References:

1. Rail budget speech by Honourable Minister of Railways, Government of India.

2. Minutes of meeting of IRCTC with stakeholders on 26th March 2010.

3. Information available in public domain on website of Directorate

of Public Grievances, Govt of India.

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Documents

Railway Feedback System_by _Mohit Rastogi _VGSOM_IIT_KGP