Regular taxis can soon be booked through an app at Sealdah and Kolkata railway stations (formerly Chitpur), thanks to an initiative by city police to provide passengers the option of booking a ride home or to any other destination even before getting off their trains.

Such an app for Howrah station already exists and around 6,000 metered taxis are e-booked daily on an average. But Lalbazar's app-based booking would be different from that through which commuters hire Uber and Ola cabs.

A passenger would be required to enter the date and destination and either pay through a debit or a credit card in advance or in cash at the time of the journey. Once the booking is confirmed, a taxi booking number would be generated and sent to the passenger's phone through an SMS. The passenger would need to present the taxi booking number at a kiosk near the prepaid taxi booth outside either station for a vehicle to be assigned.

The taxi fare would be generated once a passenger inputs the date and destination of the journey. The onus would be on the commuter to decide whether he or she would pay the fare at the time of booking or in cash at the time of the journey.

"On the Uber and Ola apps, the vehicle number and driver's contact details are made available to the passenger at the time of the booking. We won't be able to do that because of uncertainty over the availability of a particular taxi at a particular time. Taxis can be booked even a day before the date of journey; so there is no point in assigning a particular car for the journey. Taxis would be assigned at the time of the journey on the basis of availability," said an officer at Lalbazar, the headquarters of city police.

Passengers arriving at any of the two stations later than scheduled wouldn't have to worry about not finding a taxi. The system will function alongside the existing prepaid taxi arrangement, but promises to spare passengers the hassle of queuing up to book one.

Calcutta police are likely to fit radio-frequency identification (RFID) tags on yellow cabs to monitor their availability once they enter Sealdah or Kolkata station.

Howrah police follow a similar system.

An RFID tag provides a unique identifier to an object. Once a vehicle with such a tag passes through a gate with a scanner, the taxi can be immediately identified.

Sumit Kumar, deputy commissioner (traffic) in the Howrah police commissionerate, said the database currently included 16,000 metered taxis with RFID tags. These cabs can be tracked once they enter the station compound and are hired through the app developed by Howrah police.

Sources in Calcutta police's traffic department said app-based taxi booking would be possible at Kolkata station by the end of this month. The service would be extended to Sealdah soon after.

Both stations would have gates with RFID readers to track taxi movement. Since RFID tags are priced no more than Rs 15 each, the police expect a large number of taxi operators to join the app fleet. Additional commissioner (I) Vineet Goyal, who is overseeing the project, said both taxis and passengers would benefit from it.