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The Railways plan to reduce the number of premium trains with low occupancy and replace these with Tatkal trains. Premium trains have dynamic pricing and their fares are modelled along airline fares, where the fares rise as the number of seats available reduce. In Tatkal trains, all fares will be at one slab, but at a premium .
“Our priority is to make as many passengers travel conveniently as possible. In premium trains, a very large number of trains were not fully occupied because of dynamic pricing,” Ajay Shukla, Member-Traffic, Railway Board, told BusinessLine .
Since the fares are very high in the last slab under the dynamic pricing system, passengers are reluctant to buy tickets. This has led to trains running at 60-70 per cent occupancy.
The Railways, which reviewed the running of premium trains, decided that wherever capacity utilisation was low, trains with Tatkal fare would be run, as this allows for a flat premium for all seats.
“So, the number of premium trains will be reduced and only those premium trains where occupancy is over 80 per cent will continue to operate. Other trains will be run as special trains with Tatkal fare structure,” said Shukla, adding that this would be the passenger operation strategy for Indian Railways in future.
Premium trains, as a concept, were launched in December 2013 on the Delhi-Mumbai sector, to deal with the unprecedented rush, particularly as air fares too are very high during Christmas-New Year season.
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