Lack of connectivity makes WR's new ATVMs useless

While the Western Railway (WR) authorities are doing every bit to promote the Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVM), which they claim to be an ideal replacement for queues at ticket windows and malpractices through use of coupons, connectivity glitches seem to be defeating their purpose.

ineffective: It's been nearly a fortnight since 34 of the 80 new ATVMs were introduced on the Western line. However, these machines are yet to be connected to the main server, thus making their existence pointless. File pic

Useless
It's been nearly a fortnight since 34 of the 80 new ATVMs were introduced on the Western line. However, these machines are yet to be connected to the main server, thus making their existence pointless. While the 32 ATVMs that have been installed at major railway stations, including Churchgate, Mumbai Central, Bandra and Andheri, have been connected to the main server and are operating well. The remaining 14 machines will be installed soon.

Officialspeak
"Local Area Network (LAN) connectivity for 34 ATVMs is pending. Once these ATVMs are connected to the main server, they will become operational," said a WR official, requesting anonymity. As per the protocol, the new ATVMs are supposed to be connected to the ticket windows at their respective stations. Later, using LAN, these machines will be connected to the main server. The ATVMs that require LAN extender for connectivity are the ones that will become operational at smaller stations on the Western line. Apart from installing new machines, the WR would be recruiting staff to issue tickets using ATVMs, a method which the authorities believe is much quicker than manual issuing of tickets.

Did you know?
>> 115: The number of ATVMs on the Churchgate-Virar line
>> R50,000: WR's daily earnings via ATVMsu00a0