New Delhi : Railways is undertaking a series of steps to make ticket booking easier, as it is committed to making the end-to-end travel experience passenger-centric, Ministry of Railways said in an official statement.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently reviewed the progress of these reforms. He emphasised that the ticketing system should be smart, transparent, accessible, and efficient. Planning should focus on passenger convenience. The system must ensure a smooth and comfortable travel experience for our passengers.
Currently, the reservation chart is prepared four hours before the departure of the train. This creates uncertainty in the minds of passengers. Wherever passengers are coming from a nearby area to catch the train, this uncertainty can cause serious problems, the statement said.
To remove this uncertainty, the railway board has proposed preparing the reservation chart eight hours before the departure. For trains departing before 1400 hours, the chart will be prepared the previous day at 2100 hours. The Railway Minister agreed with this proposal and directed the board to start implementing this in phases so that there is no disruption.
According to the Ministry, this move will reduce uncertainties for passengers with waitlist tickets. The passengers will get the first update on waitlist status well in advance. It will benefit passengers travelling from remote locations or the suburbs of major cities for catching long-distance trains. It will also provide more time to make alternative arrangements in case the waitlist is not confirmed.
The Railway Minister reviewed the upgradation of the passenger reservation system. The project has been executed for the last few months by CRIS. The new upgraded PRS design is agile, flexible, and scalable to handle ten times the current load. It will significantly enhance the ticket booking capacity. The new PRS will allow over 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute. This will be an increase of roughly five times from 32,000 tickets per minute in the current PRS.
The ticket enquiry capacity will jump ten times, i.e., from 4 lakh to over 40 lakh per enquiry, which will be possible in a minute time. The new PRS also has a multilingual and user-friendly booking and enquiry interface.
In the new PRS, users will be able to submit their choice of seat and see the fare calendar. It also has integrated facilities for Divyangjan, students, patients, etc. Streamlined authentication for Tatkal bookings ,Indian Railways will allow only authenticated users to book Tatkal tickets on the IRCTC website and mobile app beginning 1st July, 2025.
Further, OTP-based authentication will be done for Tatkal bookings from the end of July. The Railways Minister instructed officials to broadbase the authentication mechanism for Tatkal bookings. The authentication should be done using Aadhaar or any other verifiable Government ID available in the user's DigiLocker account. These measures reflect the continuous efforts of Indian Railways to modernise its systems and make them more citizen friendly.