Southern Rail Passengers Perception on Ticketcharges (Study with References to Coimbatore and Palakkad Junctions)
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International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering (IJITEE) ISSN: 2278-3075, Volume-8, Issue-11S, September 2019 Southern Rail Passengers Perception on Ticketcharges (Study with References to Coimbatore and Palakkad Junctions) Remya Cheriyan, Ramasethu Adithya Krishna Abstract-; Pricing strategies of the Indian railway is the most the Indian railways it incur huge losses, carry out various important and attractive feature, that influences huge number of uneconomical activities and end-up in foregoing revenues lower to upper middle income people to use this mode of /profit for the benefit of the common man. In true, sense transportation. The article attempt to measure and assess the Indian railways struggle very hard to manage its business Southern rail passengers perception on ticket charges. Article found that 74.80 per cent of the sample passengers have stated operations and earn feasible revenue to run its business. that cost of general compartment ticket is the major attractive There are three primary sources through which Indian service feature, which they like to benefit by travelling in railways earn revenue i.e., through revenue earned from Southern railway trains. The sample rail passengers are freight and passengers transportation services, budgets appreciate Southern railway features like: suitability of ticket allocated by the Central Government of India and the funds fair: tax and cost of value added services, benefits enjoyed on raised from external sources of borrowing i.e., from luxury travel, ticket concessions enjoyed and refund and penalties charged. Ticket rate fixation strategies adopted by the financial market and from financial institutions. Among the Indian railways, greatly influences in attraction of new and more three categories revenue earned through passenger spending passengers. is considered as the direct revenue earned by Indian railways based on its efficiency of services rendered to different class Key Words: Pricing Strategies, Indian Railways, Rail of customers. Revenue earning of Indian railways have been Passengers. reducing with the mounting of various operational expenses and passengers movement to other mode of transportation I. INTRODUCTION like: low cost airway services, luxury bus services or to Mode of conveyances and its easy accessibility is very other mode of surface transportation. important and key factor that has supported in the fastest growth of the modern society. Numbers of transportation II. ISSUES FOCUSED services are available to human being to commute from one Being working with the socially responsible i.e., place to other. And the usage of various mode of socialistic concept for number decades, Indian railways have transportation difference from one place to another like: started adopting flexi pricing concept i.e., a concept of usage of water ways, surface mode, air etc. rail charging high for the rich and luxury service seekers and transportation service is one of the mode important mode of charging low for the marginally poor and economically travel preferred by millions of Indian populations. Pricing weaker section of the society and to the elders. Introduction strategies of the Indian railway is the most important and of flexible price scheme have brought in revenue to the attractive feature, that influences huge number of lower to extent of Rs.6.71 billion (i.e., around US $ 99 million) in the upper middle income people to use this mode of year 2016. These modified ticket rates are found to be nearer transportation. More idea for long-distance travel. In India and competitive with low cost air ticket charges or charges railway services cover distance of 115000 kilometer with of luxury deluxe bus charges. Many of the passengers effective operation of 12617 passenger trains and 7421 considered that the train travel is more cost-effective cargo (freight) trains, on an average 23million people and compared to other modes of travel. 3million tonnes of cargo are moved by railways per day. Rail is the largest transportation system in India. III. AIMS OF THE ARTICLE Indian economy being mixed in nature i.e., both social and capitalistic in nature most of services offered by the • The article attempt to measure and assess the Government of India to the common man is more social Southern rail passengers perception on ticket charges. oriented than based on the profit earning concept, offering of railway service is one of the best example. Indian IV. REVIEW OF LITERATURE railways runs every day for nation’s interest and not driven Brief discussions of few reviews collected are presented by commercial principles. Due to this socialistic attitude of in this section of the article. Kumar (2006)had commented that with introduction of Revised Manuscript Received on September 10, 2019. online /e-ticking practices is the better progressive Remya Cheriyan Ph.D scholar Nehru College of arts and science, implementation of information technology served as a thrust Associate Professor, School of Management, Vel Tech towards better responsiveness to the raising passenger RangarajanDr.Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology, Chennai, Tamilnadu, India. demands. Dekkers and Rietveld (2007) claim that rail (email: [email protected]) Dr Ramasethu Adithya Krishna, College of arts and science, Asst Professor, School of Management, Vel Tech Rangarajan Dr.Sagunthala R&D Institute of Science and Technology,Chennai, Tamilnadu, India. (email: [email protected]). Published By: Retrieval Number: K113009811S19/2019©BEIESP Blue Eyes Intelligence Engineering DOI: 10.35940/ijitee.K1130.09811S19 747 & Sciences Publication Southern Rail Passengers Perception on Ticketcharges (Study with References to Coimbatore and Palakkad Junctions) passengers were satisfied with the service of Mobile-tickets travel (67.20 per cent) and ticket concession for air and they found the Mobile-ticket services are very conditioned compartment travel (67 per cent). convenient and easy to use, no more queuing etc. According to Vanniarajan and Stephen (2012) Southern railways has TABLE: 1 stood up to the expectations of their passengers and its RAIL PASSENGERS OPINION ON TICKET railqual factors positively influencing the passengers’ CHARGES OF SOUTHERN RAILWAYS satisfaction and image of reliability and empathy. Gandhimathi and Saravanan (2013)claim that passengers feel comfortable in train travelling and majority of the passengers are satisfied towards features like: tangible, empathy, assurance, comfort, reliability, frequency, speed and travel time of trains. Yadav et al., (2014)registered in his article that technological upgradation bought some advantages for railways like: revenue, procurement of tickets by touts is eliminated. Indian Railways takes all possible measures to fill-in each and every seat even vacant for one station to next station. The study mentioned that maintenance of transparency in berth allocation and makes the ticket checking process fast. According to Anbupriya and Subadara (2017)Indian Railway has taken necessary steps to reduce the traffic during peak hours and should provide fast retrieval of information to save more time. As per Sanyal et al., (2018)study conclusion rail passengers expressed their satisfaction with the overall services provided by the Indian Railways i.e. train fares, display board of time, canteen facilities or food stalls at the major stations. At the end of the reviews discussion it has been understood that Indian railways have enhanced its service offering efficiency with the introduction of e-ticking (electronic) services. Passengers claim a feel of As per the data analysis results majority of the sample satisfactiontowards service offered to them Indian Railways passengers has opined on various features of southern i.e. train fares, display board of time, canteen facilities or railway ticket fares i.e. cost of general compartment ticket, food stalls at the major stations. cost of ticket for second class travel, flexibility of train fairs, offer of ticket fare concession, rate of reserved and V. METHODOLOGY unreserved ticket, cost of the tickets during seasonal period The study adopted two types of sampling framework. One and special benefits attached with the ticket fair. In the next for selection of sample stations and another for selection of stage of data analysis, it was inferred that passengers stated respondents. The study is focused on the two railway the feature claimed by southern railway ticket fares i.e., cost division of the Southern Railway Zone i.e., Salem and of insurance services offered, cost of air conditioned travel Palakkad. In total 71Trains Passing through Salem division ticket, refunding of ticket charges in case of cancelation, and running through Palakkad, thus, these seventh one trains penalty charged in case of any default, cost of leisure and are considered as samples. Out of the 71 train, thirty per cent luxury train services, others (i.e. extending travel, change in (30) was chosen as sample i.e., 21 trains. A sample of 125 class of travel etc.,), tax charged of tickets and cost of rail passengers of two zones i.e., Salem and Palakkad were tathkal tickets. approached for collection of data. In the current study explorative factor analysis technique VI. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION has been applied to find the underlying dimension (factors) that exists in the 15 variables relating to the rail passengers The empirical study was conducted among 250 Southern opinion on ticket charges of Southern Railways.