The

Railway
Reservation
System

IN TR OD UC IN G

THE GREAT INDIAN RAILWAYS

Indian Railways(IR) is the largest rail network in Asia and the
worlds second largest under one management.
Indian Railways is an Indian state-owned enterprise, owned and
operated by the government of India through the Ministry of
Railways.
It is one of the world's largest railway networks comprising
of track over a route of 65,000 km (40,000 mi) and 7,500
stations.
IR carries about 7,500 million passengers annually or more
than 20 million passengers daily.
The manual system had reached its peak capacity, resulting in
long queues and waiting times , and inefficient services at the
reservation counters. Complicated rate calculations , manual
ledger books and paperwork led to errors.

THE CHRONICLES OF THE

RESERVATION SYSTEM

Booking tickets on trains used to be an impossible task. Reservation was

handled by a complicated system of manually handw ritten ledgers and
registers and could be done only from originating or very big stations en
route the train.
Computerization has made the process easier and more accessible to
traveling public and drastically increased traffic. CRIS, the Centre for
Railw ay Information Systems w as established in 1986 to handle
everything related to IT in the Indian Railw ays . And the Passenger
Reservation System (PRS) is only one among the several projects that
CRIS handles.
PRS was started at Delhi in 1985 to handle computerized reservations for a
few trains. It was then extended to Mumbai, Chennai , Kolkata in 1987
and by 1990 most of the long distance train reservations were
computerized as f ar as the railways are concerned
In 2000, The first major project launched came in the year 2000; it was
the Internet Querying system for PRS (Passenger Reservation System).
Passengers could check their PNR statuses, railway timetables etc.
In 2002, the online booking w ebsite by IRCTC w as launched .

METHODS OF RESERVATION
Reservation Counters at Stations
Most cities have ticket counters located at multiple locations for the
passengers convenience.
There are special quotas for foreign tourists.
India railway ticket counters are open 8.00 a.m. till 8.00 p.m. on
weekdays, and 8.00 a.m. to 2.00 p.m. on Sundays.
You can use credit cards for booking tickets at the special Credit
Card counters at the reservation office.
Agents
Automatic Ticket Vending Machines (ATVMs): The smartcards can be
swiped at and used at booking counters at select stations
IRCTC w ebsite
Other Websites: such as makemytrip and yatra
Mobile (SMS): the ticket would be delivered on your mobile phone.
Ind-Rail Pass: Available to foreign tourists from abroad. buy an Ind
Rail Pass from the official Ind Rail pass agency in your home country,
complete with any train reservations you need.

AGENTS
E-ticketing facility was extended to Railway
agents (RTSAs) during 2006.
Until now more than 10,000 agents are enrolled
for this E-ticketing facility and on daily basis
almost 2 lac tickets are booked by these
respective agents all over the country.
Used by people to book in bulk and by people
who do not wish to book directly.

IRCTC WEB PORTAL

Launched in 2002 .
Tickets for Rail journeys and Tatkal tickets can be booked the
Internet on the website by any user after registering at the site for
free.
Booking for normal passengers opens at 8am and for agents at
10am: This is to enhance convenience of usage of the website.
Credit and Debit cards are accepted during internet transactions
Nominal service charge is levied (Customers dont mind this as
tickets are booked sitting at home)
Cap of maximum of four online bookings a month, and each ticket
can be for a maximum of six passengers.
Automatic Refunds: A refund is made on the card in case of
cancellation
Customer Support Services: can be availed by dialing the no 139
which is a 24 hour service.

 Checking PNR Status

Seat availability (Indianrail.gov.in)
Senior citizens given preference
Trains availability between stations
Train schedule updated in present time
Route and Fare Enquiry
Arrivals and Departures

SCHEMES TO ENHANCE YOUR EXPERIENCE

S O F T s c h e me : F r e q u e n t Tra v e l l e r s s c h e me w a s l a u n c h e d w h e r e b y a F r e q u e n t
Tra v e l l e r c o u l d r e d e e m p o i n t s e a r n e d t o g e t a c o mp l e me n t a r y t r a i n t r i p a f t e r a c e r t a i n
n u mb e r o f r e w a r d p o i n t s h a d a c c u mu l a t e d . .
U n r es e r v e d Ti c ke t i n g S c h e me ( U T S ) : P r i o r t o t h e i mp l e me n t a t i o n o f U T S ,
u n r e s e r v e d t i c k e t s w e r e i n t h e f o r m o f s ma l l p u r p o s e - b u i l t c a r d s , s p e c i a l l y p r i n t e d
f o r e a c h o r i g i n - d e s t i n a t i o n p a i r o f s t a t i o n s . D i s b u r s i n g t h e s e t i c k e t s w a s a ma mmo t h
e x e r c i s e , r e q u i r i n g mu n d a n e a n d w a s t e f u l e f f o r t j u s t t o ke e p t h e t i c ke t s i n s t o c k.
P a s s e n g e r s f a c e d c row d e d a n d c h a o t i c t i c ke t w i n d o w s , l a s t - m i n u t e t i c ke t i n g
g l i t c h e s , a n d o p a q u e t i c ke t ref u n d r u l e s .
T h e U T S h a s e l i mi n a t e d a l l t h e s e b o t t l e n e c k s b y h a v i n g a c e n t r a l i s e d d a t a b a s e o f
t i c k e t s , w h i c h c a n b e b o u g h t i n a d v a n c e f r o m a n y t i c k e t w i n d o w. An u n r e s e r v e d
t i c k e t a u t h o r i z e s t h e s e j o u r n e ys b u t a s t h e n a me i mp l i e s , o ff e r s n o r e s e r v e d s e a t s o r
b e r t h s . Th e t i c k e t i s n o t s p e c i f i c t o a t r a i n s e r v i c e e i t h e r. Th i s f a c i l i t y i s
p r e d o mi n a n t l y u s e d o v e r s h o r t d i s t a n c e s w h e r e a s s u r e d s e a t i n g i s n o t a n e c e s s i t y.
Sahaj- IRCTC partnership: A specific vehicle to extend the ticket booking
f a c i l i t i e s t o r u r a l I n d i a . Th i s ma k e s s u r e t h a t a l l t h e v i l l a g e r s o b t a i n a l l s e r v i c e s t h a t
t h e i r u r b a n c o u n t e r p a r t s a r e a l r e a d y f a mi l i a r w i t h .

OTHER WEBSITES
Cleartrip
Yatra
Makemytrip
Ixigo
Quickr

MOBILE APPLICATIONS AND SMS

T he IR CT C mobile has an attractive and user-friendly interface to facilitate
easy navigation and has capability to book tickets in real time and store
tickets details, making it an ideal ticketing solution.
O nce you enter your mobile number in the IRC T C web page, you will be
automatically registered, post which you can download and install IRC T C
mobile on your java-enabled mobile phone. You can start booking railway
tickets through your IRC TC mobile and pay through the credit card/ cash
card.
PN R Alert Service : An S MS based service through which the customer is
kept appraised of the ticket status as it moves from Waitlist to C onfirmed,
before the jou rney. IR CT C had taken up the project for launch of Integrated
Train Enquiry S ystem- R ail S ampark 139 with the objective of providing
S tate of the Art enquiry services to Railway P assengers all over the country
S MS Booking : T he simplest version of M obile ticketing wherein the ticked
can be booked using just 2 SM S.

BENEFITS TO THE PASSENGERS

1. Reservation counters are available at multiple locations and is
best for people living close to such stations, those who are not
techno savvy. Also there is no service charge paid. Best for
immediate and local travel.
2. ATVMs are very useful for those who travel everyday. They
can avail various schemes and it saves them from standing in
long queues.
3. Agents have special portals on the websites and can book in
bulk. They are useful for busy people who do not have the
time to indulge in transactions.
4. Mobile services are extremely quick, can be accessed from
anywhere and do not need a print out. Does away with the
need of a high speed internet service.
5. There is a surety of transparency in the services offered.

6. Its a value for money journey.

7. Improving the facilities day by day like pantry
food(making it hygenic) also it is eco- friendly as one of the
objectives of the railways as they now allow tickets to be shown
on the mobile phone, which has reduced the use printed E-ticket.
8. IRCTC Provides tickets to public in the comforts of
their
home/residence and save them from hassles to visit Railway
Reservation Centres.
9. Simplicity and Convenience for the common man is the
agenda.
10.Fast and hassle-free booking
11.Flexibility

BENEFITS TO THE RAILWAYS

1.Easy access has increased revenue
2.Less crowd at Counters easy to manage
3.COST SAVING: For Railways it is saving on their infrastructure
i.e. Buildings, Air-Conditioning, Electricity, Furniture, Staff etc.
The spirit behind the project was to avoid the customer going to
Passenger Reservation System (PRS) and instead bring PRS to
customer.
4.Efficient managing of voluminous information and data effectively
5.Minimizes possibilities of manipulations and malpractice.
6.Enables centralized control for monitoring and auditing
7.Ensures accounting of the tickets sold across all railway zones
8.Sustains growth in passengers without any growth in staff
9.Simplifies changes in fare structure, destination and other database
updates.

CHALLENGES FACED BY THE

PASSENGERS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.

8.

9.

Ov ercrowded Reservation Counters as the counters fo r platform tickets

are just next to it which has a huge crowd over it.
Lack of Integrat ed Services: cannot book hotels and connecting trains
thro ugh IRCTC
Du ring p eak time, the booking pro cess fails on payment.
Problems in website: Slow service and lots of advertisements
Foreigners have limited options
Complicated if booking of more than 6 people required at a time.
In case of wait listed passengers the list comes out fou r hours before the
train actually d eparts which keeps the passenger in a ambiguity
regarding his ticket status.
The corrupt practices that the TCs do like giving their o wn seats to th e
passengers wh o d ont hav e a seat at much higher prices than the actual
price of the ticket.
Ticket checking policies keep changing: Cu stomers dont get notified
properly

PROBLEMS FACED BY THE

RAILWAYS
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.

Lack of Key Persons: e Governance projects lack key persons, not

only from technological aspect, but from other aspects as well.
Large Population: Burden
Establishing Person Identities- multiple accounts and phone numbers
Passengers lack trust in online bookings since webportals tend to
crash and due to credit card frauds. (Secure portals)
Presence of unauthorized people selling tickets right outside the
counters which leads to black marketing.
Agents clogging the website and booking tickets in bulk and
subsequently cancelling in bulk
ATVMs only in 3 cities, not customer friendly
People book more than 1 ticket in the same name on the same train
TCs indulge in malpractice and charge illegal commission: loss
revenue to railways

Thank You