Route Mobile Launches WhatsApp Ticketing for Select Cities

Route Mobile Limited, in partnership with Billeasy E Solutions Private Limited, has launched WhatsApp-based metro ticket booking services for Nagpur, Pune, Hyderabad, and Delhi. This makes Route Mobile the largest enabler of WhatsApp-based metro rail ticket booking in India, serving over 7.5 million commuters daily.

To book a ticket, commuters need to visit the official WhatsApp account of their respective metro service, select their stations, make the payment, and receive their tickets directly on WhatsApp. The payment can be made using UPI, net banking, credit, or debit cards. Once the payment is successful, the ticket is sent as a WhatsApp message with a link to a QR code, which can be scanned at the station for entry.

Route Mobile first introduced this service for the Delhi Metro in late 2023. With the addition of Nagpur, Pune, and Hyderabad, Route Mobile now supports four out of the 15 cities in India with active metro services.

This solution, developed in Route Mobile's R&D center, Route Lab, uses advanced features like web views and payment integrations to ensure a simple, reliable, and secure experience for users.

For Each city, there are unique numbers of this WhatsApp service know them by visiting the official site from this official press release. 

Rajdipkumar Gupta, Managing Director & Group CEO of Route Mobile, expressed his delight over the deployment, highlighting the company's commitment to innovative solutions that enhance customer interactions. He emphasized Route Mobile's network capability and scalability, which support such large-scale deployments.

Akash Patil, Founder & CEO of Billeasy, noted that their partnership with Route Mobile helps drive digital transformation for enterprises and government organizations, providing a simple and accessible solution for commuters.

With a market penetration of over 65%, WhatsApp is one of the most popular messaging channels. Route Mobile, as a certified partner of Meta, continues to adopt and deploy new features on its platform to improve user experience.

Route Mobile

Route Mobile Limited, established in 2004 and headquartered in Mumbai, India, is a leading cloud communications platform service provider. They offer Communication Platform as a Service (CPaaS) solutions to enterprises, OTT players, and mobile network operators.

Their portfolio includes messaging, voice, email, SMS filtering, analytics, and monetization solutions. Route Mobile has a diverse client base across various industries such as social media, banking, e-commerce, and travel. They have a global presence with offices in Asia Pacific, the Middle East, Africa, Europe, and the Americas.

As part of the Proximus Group, Route Mobile continues to innovate and expand its offerings. They have made strategic acquisitions, enhancing their capabilities in SMS and value-added services, customer support, telecom solutions, and AI-powered communication platforms.

With over 3,000 active clients and extensive global connections, Route Mobile processes billions of transactions monthly, demonstrating their significant impact on the communication technology landscape.

Whatsapp-Based Ticketing in India 

The Whatsapp-based ticketing in India kickstarted when WhatsApp introduced Business API in late 2018 to help the big firms who work in hotel and movie booking enhance their customer experience in the industry jargon for it is called CX.

The first metro in India to adopt this was Delhi Metro with initial service started in May of 2023 on the airport line and later expanded to other metro cities. 

The govt of India on its part is actively integrating the commuter base in all cities with huge databases under its program NCMC (National Common Mobility Card) it works like a smart card regardless of the public transport where users can use this one single card without having to worry to carry coin/ currency changes required with local government bus operators.

This system is in a slow rollout phase. The data from this card which will enable research institutes like IUT (Institute of Urban Transport) to gain and understand both micro and macro aspects of Urban mobility in Indian cities.  

The parallel world of WhatsApp with more than 500 million active monthly users on its platform, WhatsApp has just hit the goldmine with a case of WhatsApp users in India. The company has become more proactive and started collaborating with API developers to cater to unique business cases with personalized chatbot responses based on the type of business and customer base which in industry term is called CRM (customer relationship management.) 

Whether NCMC or WhatsApp-based ticketing if they help commuters of India move hustle-free and not worry about transaction issues and cross-platform usage of smart cards then it's a welcome move. 

Read the NCMC White paper here.