Trainman is an online platform which gives information and intelligence pertaining to Indian Railways, founded by Mohd Amir in May 2014.
The product can be accessed via site mobile apps for android, iphone and windows platforms.
It is a one stop shop for all information regarding indian railways. A user can check PNR status, seat availability, train schedule etc.
The USP of their product is confirmation chances of waiting list tickets. Trainman is the pioneer app in this segment and more than 90% of the predictions are correct.
Catering to Indian Railways travelers by assisting them with various train related information and intelligence, Trainman provides a simple and user-friendly interface to the complex Indian Railways rules and systems.
Vineet Chirania is the Director and Chief Executive Officer of Trainman. In his capacity as Director & CEO, Vineet is responsible for overall growth of the business and product.
He is a startup enthusiast with over 6 years of experience in the tech industry, along with his two other friends led Trainman to new heights since its inception in 2014. Equipped with sound technical knowledge and with a vast experience of travelling through trains, Vineet identified the gap between the information available to railway users and the complexity in accessing the same. He plans to bridge this gap by Trainman. Trainman has over 1.5 million monthly unique users on its platform and has close to 4 Lakh android app downloads till June, 2016.
Post completing his B.Tech & M.Tech in Computer Science from IIT Roorkee, Vineet started his professional journey as an Analyst at JP Morgan, Mumbai. An avid traveler, Vineet likes to explore new places mostly travelling by train. A big fan of Hollywood movies he also has keen interest in sports with table tennis being his favorite game.
Chitrakshi Suneja Interacts With Vineet Kumar Chirania, CEO, Trainman And Spoke To Him
Idea GenerationTrain is the lifeline of travel in India. Indian Railways carries 23 million people (which is more than the population of Australia) on trains everyday. This means that nearly 2% of Indian Population is on train on any given day.
Railways system is quite difficult to understand for a normal user. Also, getting a waitlisted ticket is quite common especially during summers vacations and festivals. This leads to confusion - will it get confirmed or not? People needed a smart system that can not only predict the confirmation of waitlisted tickets but also give all other information in a very simple and user-friendly way. Thus, Trainman was born.
Special Features
Trainman features are:- PNR status with Prediction of confirmation chances
- Seat Availability with Prediction of confirmation chances
- Train Schedule & Live running status
- Ticket fare for both general and tatkal quota
- Automatic trip detection from SMS and notifications on change in PNR status
- Live station status
- Refund Calculator
- Platform number and coach position
- Tips to book tatkal ticket
Differentiation FactorsTrainman always brings some unique features to user which addresses one or more of their pain points.
For example, Trainman was the first to start with ticket prediction (But now some other players have also followed suit). We follow a color-coding scheme for the same. For 65% and above we show confirmation chances in green color which means that ticket has high chances of confirmation. For 50% and below one can see it in red color which means that it has very less chances of confirmation. Yellow color is shown for borderline cases.
Our user interface is unique in such a way that most of the information can be seen in one view with minimal clicks.
We show historical trends to user which backs our prediction percentage. User can see some actual past trips of same train, origin, destination and class.
Refund calculator is a very unique feature. The amount refunded on ticket cancellation depends on a variety of factors – time remaining in train departure, travel class, quota (whether general or tatkal), whether ticket is waiting-list, RAC or confirmed etc. To calculate refund based on all these factors is time taking and cumbersome for users. Plus user needs to memorize the complicated refund rules. This is where Personalized Refund Calculator comes in handy. User just need to open trainman app and check the status of tickets booked. They can see a personalized refund chart generated on the basis of their ticket. It is dynamic and updates itself as time passes and as the status of the ticket changes.
Monetization And FundingOur major chunk of revenue comes from advertisements. We have also tied up with relevant businesses like Cleartrip (for flight/hotel booking) and Jugnoo (for auto booking) to generate and share revenues.
We are bootstrapped and running profitable. We might raise money in future if we find an investor who likes and understands our product on a whole and not just from financial angle.
Market OpportunityAnyone who travels by indian railways and owns a smartphone is our potential customer. There is a huge untapped market as the mobile revolution has just begun.
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This is Chitrakshi Suneja currently pursuing graduation and diploma in journalism and mass communication. She is crazy about Writing stuff on Startups, Entrepreneurs and reading as well.
