Cash-hit railways to sell traveller data

New Delhi: Looking to generate revenue, the Indian Railways is planning to sell passenger data to outsourced agencies like cab services, hotels and eateries.

The move is a follow up to railway minister Suresh Prabhu’s Budget announcement, where he had said that monetising soft assets, like passenger data related to preferences, ticketing patterns, commodity flows, train running and information on various services and operations could be exploited for generating more revenue. Following this, the Railway Board had approved the setting up of a committee, headed by the director of the Centre for Railways Information System. The committee invited top consulting firms — KPMG, Ernst & Young, Google Ads and Group M (Madhouse) — to provide an assessment of the potential for monetisation of the digital assets of the Indian Railways.

The many suggestions made include the generation of revenue through advertisements on websites and mobile apps whenever any customer accesses the system for ticketing and related services, the monetisation of data by selling it to outsourced agencies who would leverage the list data for value added services on their own, providing e-retailing services onboard train to passengers and indicating travel solutions provided to potential travellers who could not obtain confirmed rail tickets from visiting the Indian Railways system.

The passenger data can also be provided to affiliate marketing and business units which are not in the business of transportation but can use this data for enhancing their own business activities.

According to a report of the committee, which is available with this newspaper, the consulting firms and committee members explored the contours of selling data to outsourced agencies threadbare.

They decided that the date can be given out under heads like requirement for accommodation, local travel such as taxi or cab sharing and need for catering services.