Rail users can hunt for vacant seats or berths and book tickets four hours before a train departs.
Passengers can book a ticket by accessing the IRCTC website, pay online, or ask ticket-checkers on board to book the ticket and pay online — using debit or credit cards, UPI or cash. This was announced by the Railway Minister Piyush Goyal.
On the computer or the mobile screen, people can see the reserved berths/seats in each coach, as in the case flight seats. This facility will be available for all mail and express trains, which have reservation facility.
The reservation chart will be updated 30 minutes before a train’s departure.
Dynamic system
The an Railways is also working on a system to allow booking of tickets in Rajdhani and Shatabdi Express up to five minutes before a train departs. Goyal said that tickets and receipts will be issued from Point-of-Sales machines. “This will help in the accounting,” he added.
While all ticket examiners will be provided Point-of-Sales machines, there will also be “back-ups” with the loco-drivers, he added. It will be a dynamic system to bring the highest level of transparency.
“With this, the ability to market a favour will be stopped,” said Goyal, without using the word, ‘bribe’. It is not unusual for passengers to pay “extra” to travel agents or ticket-checkers for a reserved berth/seat, given the huge demand.
Vacant seats will be colour-coded — green or yellow. Yellow colour would mean the seats are partially reserved — that is, not booked for the entire journey, and the berth/seat is available for certain segments of the journey.