The railways has long been associated with social advertising, usually aimed at creating an awareness of how to use the service. While these will continue, there will be advertising to attract the business and holiday traveller.

The first in the series is the campaign for the Mumbai-Pune Shatabdi Express aimed at wooing the air traveller. On a train where occupancy has fluctuated from a low of 55 per cent to a high of 90 per cent, justifying the investment in premium products has forced the railways to attract clientelethrough advertising.

The need was felt for other reasons. Last year, CR introduced 370 summer special trains. Several of these, especially to destinations such as Gorakhpur and Varanasi, ran empty. With freight already subsidising passenger traffic to a tune of Rs 2,800 crore per year, such instances proved a drain on the railway's resources. The problem was simple. Most people did not know that these trains existed, while there were long waiting lists on well known trains.

This year the railways came up with an improved plan. First, a series of advertisements asked people to buy a railway ticket, even if it was waitlisted, rather than buy through a tout. Adding up the waitlisted passengers headed for one direction, the railways then, again through an ad campaign, announced a special train to the destination, leaving about 24 hours later.

All waitlisted passengers were given confirmed seats on this train. The ads were also strategically placed in newspapers in seven languages. For instance, forsouth-bound trains, ads were placed in Tamil in addition to English and Hindi. For north-bound trains, the focus was on Hindi newspapers, including little known tabloids read by a small community. In Mumbai alone, ads were placed in 25 newspapers.

The strategy was a resounding success. This summer all 466 holiday specials, even to Gorakhpur and Varanasi, ran full. The result is expected to be reflected in the 1998-99 balance sheet.

While return on investment is an important factor in CR's ad strategy, railway officials say they want to emerge as an organisation seen as responsive to passenger needs and developing an atmosphere of trust rather than the current image of an insensitive public-sector organisation. An area of concern is the manner in which touts block seats, depriving the genuine traveller of seats. CR has undertaken an exercise wherein all requisition forms are scanned and suspicious ones are then asked to reconfirm their tickets with identity cards.

On more than one occasion, unnervedtouts cancelled bulk bookings, which allowed the railways to then accommodate more waitlisted passengers. According to the official spokesperson, "These ads, which could cost a couple of lakhs, are aimed at just 20 or 30 people, but go a long way is creating an atmosphere of trust."