In what could be described as a New Year gift for passengers, Indian Railways has upgraded its e-ticketing site which provides one stop-solutions for the traveller.

The revamped site managed by the IRCTC, the ticketing arm of the railways, has added user personalisation features linked to user login, incorporated for the first time. This service enables booking of meals, retiring rooms and hotels along with the tickets.

IRCTC has enhanced the booking experience of travellers by simplifying train search and selection, with information being available on one page. This also saves time for passengers.

Launching the revamped e-ticketing site and IRCTC Rail Connect Mobile App, which are used for booking of railway tickets ‘online’, Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said, "The Railways is committed to serving the nation, and constantly working to augment its services to further improve the rail travel experience."

He said, “This upgraded e-ticketing platform for booking of online railway tickets, will enhance passenger convenience...IRCTC should continue to work towards constantly improving the website and ensure that it is second to none in the world as per the Digital India mission and vision of the Prime Minister.”

Predictive entry suggestions using artificial intelligence will be provided to the passenger when he is entering the station. This will greatly reduce the hassle in searching for platforms and also save time in ticket booking, according to the railways.

The interests of the railway customer is the focus of the design of this new world-class website for booking of rail tickets.

The upgraded site enables simpler checking of the refund status at the user accounts page. Earlier, this feature was not easily accessible.

‘Regular’ or ‘favorite’ journeys can be booked easily by automatically entering relevant details.
The added features include all information on one page – availability for all class is displayed along with respective fares for all trains. The passenger has to simply scroll the page and choose to ‘book’ the desired train and class.

Earlier, each train seat availability and fares could be seen only after clicking on that train individually.

A ‘cache system’ has been introduced in the backend to provide availability status. This will avoid delays in loading availabilities.

In case of waitlisted tickets, its ‘confirmation probability’ is displayed. Earlier, each waitlist status had to be checked separately. Availability for other dates can be toggled on the page itself.

Prompts during the booking process appear for making it easy for even those not so familiar with computer use, also saving time.

The journey details will also be shown on the payment page. It will prompt the user to check and rectify, if there are any typographical errors. Earlier, these corrections can only be corrected by visiting a PRS centre.

The website has in-built features for enhancing cyber security by using appropriate captchas.

According to railways, the upgraded and enhanced e-ticketing website and mobile app aims to provide best in class user experience amongst various other online travel and ticketing websites.

The level of these features will be even more advanced than the ones offered currently by the other ticketing websites. In most websites, the station search entry is still in alphabetical order, availability status is either absent or outdated.

At present, the e-ticketing website of IRCTC has more than 6 crore active users, using it to book more than 8 lakh tickets daily. Around 83 per cent of the total railway tickets reserved are booked through this online system.

Along with this, its capacity will also increase, due to which the pressure of booking in peak hours will not cause crashing of websites. Now, passengers will have more options for payment after ticket booking.

Availability Status

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