In the last financial year, Indian Railways carried 6.73 billion passengers or more than 82% of the total population of the planet! This single piece of statistic is enough to indicate the flood of calls that the Indian Railways’ helpline number 139 has to help – a challenge that is made possible only due to the deft employment of generative AI, or GenAI, by the organisation.
In order to tackle the flood of calls flooding the system, Indian Railways took help of automated interactive system in a sharp departure from the call centre that used to handle the calls for many years. The technology has been adopted mainly in the past 1 year, helping the railways to offer seamless experience for its customers and passengers who are constantly growing in number.
IRCTC to adopt GenAI
IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) is also working on adopting the technology for its helpline 14646.
A very big benefit of adopting GenAI is that passengers can reach information on a real-time basis in several Indian languages. The service is right now available in Hindi and English, while Bengali and Telegu.
Railway passengers get info in seconds
The enquirers get the required information in seconds. This information manly relates to time of trains, status of ticket confirmation etc. AI has also removed vexatious experiences such unending waits and call drops.
Any regular commuter by railways will know that some of the common issues faced by passengers relate to unclean toilets in the trains, absence of water in the taps in the coaches, problem with bedroll and/or emergency situations. The most important point is that during trips passengers feel impatient and want the authorities to address the situation quickly.
Bengaluru-based company behind the technology
According to reports, a Bengaluru-based company that specialises in AI, voice recognition, telephony, payments have helped the railways in successfully adopting the technology. The name of the firm is Ubona. The company’s expertise is put to use in different sectors such as insurance, banks, e-commerce platforms etc.
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