An experience-first, app-based solution for a facility provided by the Indian Railways wherein tourists who wish to go on tours/pilgrimages across the country in a round-trip fashion can book their 'circular journey' tickets.

1. DESIGN PROBLEM
Design an application for booking
Indian Railways ‘Circular Journey’ tickets
SUBMITTED BY :
Sanket Chaudhari
sanket.chaudhari1991@gmail.com
27-Jul-2017

2. What is a Circular Journey?
A facility provided by the Indian Railways to cater to the needs of
tourists who wish to go on tours/pilgrimages across the country in a
round trip across destinations.
For the convenience of tourists, Zonal Railways (barring Southern
Railways) also offer some standard circular journey tickets.
In addition to this, one can also choose to chalk out his/her custom
itinerary and get in touch with the Zonal Railways to draw up custom
Circular Journey tickets to suit his/her requirements.
A maximum of 8 break journeys permitted on a ticket.

3. CJT - Rules and Trivia
A maximum of 8 break journeys allowed in a circular journey.
A traveller is free to choose the break points in his/her journey - but on
a condition that he/she needs to finish the journey within the validity
period.
Fare is calculated on the basis of the distance covered in the journey.
Circular Journey tickets can be purchased for any class of travel.
Validity period starts on the commencing day of the journey.
Travellers can consider all trains for his/her routes except for Rajdhani/
Shatabdi/Duronto.
Based on the kilometres covered in the journey, there is a validity
period associated with a ticket.

4. Current CJT booking process
Finalize itinerary.1.
Approach the Divisional Commercial Manager of the Division of certain
major stations to which the journey commencing station belongs. The
Divisional Commercial Manager or the station authorities will then
calculate the cost of the tickets based on your itinerary. He will also
inform the Station Manager of the same in a prescribed format.
2.
You can purchase Circular Journey Tickets by presenting this form at
the Booking Office of the station where you propose to start your
journey.
3.
Approach the Reservation Office to reserve your accommodation for
various laps of your journey. You will then be issued reserved journey
ticket for the journey.
4.

5. Advantages of CJT
Convenience of having to book a single ticket for the entire journey
Saves a lot of money

6. Pain points in the current booking process
Time consuming - usually takes between 4-7 days
Need to build itinerary before approaching the concerned authorities.
This is a complex task as many variables are involved.
For any change in application, a new application needs to be filled
from scratch.
One needs to keep track of the validity period of the ticket based
on the number of kilometres he/she plans to travel
Train availibility is unknown
A completely offline process - expects the user to go to the major
stations from where his/her journey commences

7. Understanding the process better
Tried to get in touch with people who might have already been a part
of such journeys - but as it turns out, very less people know that such
a concept exists - mainly because it is not marketed as much - also
because it is offline.
Learnt more about the role of the DCM and various station authorities
in the offline process to understand their potential role in an online
solution.
The responsibilities carried out by the DCM/station authorities can
be handled by an online system

8. An online ticket booking process diagram
Two major steps in the process :
Building itinerary
Making train reservations for each leg of the journey
With no offline elements involved, the circular journey ticket booking
process looks like the following :
Build itinerary
Actor
Success!Book ticket online

9. Target Users
Our target users for this problem would be travellers all over the world
who wish to travel across India in a round trip across several
destinations in a limited time.
Should have a minimum proficiency in mobile phone usage.

10. How do users build itineraries?
I got in touch with a few traveller friends to understand how they go
about building their travel itineraries.
Like to consult a variety of websites/blogs before zero-ing down on
destinations/routes.
Have a time slot in mind - a start and end date - for the trip.
Have a starting point in mind. (e.g. “I’ll land in Delhi, and then head to
the Himalayas from there”)
Have an experience in mind - sight-seeing, family trip, food tour etc.
( e.g. “I want to go on a spiritual trip”)

11. How do users book train tickets?
Do not usually change berth/class preferences.
Prefer overnight journeys to reach the destinations in the morning over
having to travel through the day.

12. Potential pain points for users in booking
Circular Journey tickets
Users need to keep track of a lot of variables while building itineraries
for a circular journey :
Number of kilometres to be travelled.
Validity period of the journey based on the number of kilometres.
Total time available with them to complete the journey (the start
and end date they have in mind).
Availability of trains for suitable timings is a concern.
Users almost never think of travel itineraries in terms of the distance
they intend to cover - but the places or experiences they would like to
visit/have.

13. Design Goal
Based on the research and understanding of the process, the goal of
would be to design a mobile app based solution for booking Circular
Journey Tickets that :
Is a one-stop shop for travelers to explore and build travel
itineraries.
Is intuitive and less time consuming.

14. Assumptions
There are a fixed number of circular journey routes. That is, a traveller
cannot define their own routes, but have to choose one out of these
fixed set of routes.
The app has access to all the information required by it to make
recommendations.
The number of passengers travelling and the class of travel cannot be
changed during the course of the journey.
If passengers do not wish to cover all the stations specified on the
itinerary but like to perform journey by the direct and shorter route
cutting short their journey time may choose to cut some stations from
the itinerary, but this will not result in change in original circular route
fare.

15. Assumptions (Contd…)
No permissions (offline/online) are required from Zonal Railway
officers.
Tickets for all trains are readily available all the time.
Users are not allowed to change the number of journey/break journey
days at any break along the route - from what are suggested by our
system.

16. Wireframes and initial concepts

17. Wireframes and initial concepts (Contd…)
An initial concept for a potential user flow through the app

18. Wireframes and initial concepts (Contd…)

19. Wireframes and initial concepts (Contd…)

20. Wireframes and initial concepts (Contd…)

21. Wireframes and initial concepts (Contd…)

22. Final Screens
02. Choose the type of
experiences you are looking for
(can be skipped, if the user
decides to do so)
01. Fill in the source station,
date and number of travellers
(can be skipped, if the user
decides to do so)
03. Experiences chosen

23. Based on the details, the system
populates a list of routes suited to
users’ needs (keeping in mind all
the constraints).
Elements like price per person and
appropriate tags help the user find
a suitable route for him/her
04.

24. Users can choose to refine the
results using filters.
They can choose to see only those
routes which have specific cities/
places in them and within a specific
budget (not displayed in the
mockup)
05.

25. They can then choose to learn
more about the route.
Tapping on the location card on the
bottom takes the user to the
location detail page where they can
find all the relevant information
about things like places to visit,
activities to do, food suggestions
etc.
The map pins are color-gradient-
coded to make it easy for the
users’ eyes to follow the route.
06.

26. Exploring places on the route
07.

27. One can decide to edit the route by
tapping on the edit button on top
right corner of the route map
screen.
Users can only add/remove
destinations which are already
present on the route. He/she
cannot add/remove new
destinations not present on the
route selected.
08.

28. The removed destination slides to
the bottom of the screen from
where it can once again be added
back.
09.

29. After the exploration, once the user
is satisfied with the route, he/she
proceeds to choose trains.
Here, our system pre-populates all
the trains based on user data like
preferred travel times (travelers
usually prefer travelling overnight),
highest rated trains etc. - thus,
potentially saving the user from
having to potentially choose trains
for 9 legs of a journey.
The users can choose to change
the trains any legs of the journey.
The train cards are again color-
gradient coded to help the user
follow the itinerary.
10.

30. Change train
11.

31. On confirming the travel itinerary
the user proceeds to add traveler
details where he/she can quickly
add people off his/her address
book.
Travel preferences are already
saved with the traveller name (at
the time of adding a new traveller)
12.

32. Travellers added
13.

33. Review itinerary
14.

34. Select payment method
15.

35. Circular Ticket is booked
successfully.
16.

36. Pros of the proposed solution
Better route discoverability.
Users only sees what they want to see - can filter out all the irrelevant
routes. This helps users get to their goal efficiently and quickly!
Tailor made routes based on user preferences - potentially higher
levels of positive emotional returns from the circular journey.
One-stop-shop for users to explore itinerary options - avoids countless
hours of back-and-forth between apps and websites.

37. Thank you.