A subsidiary of the Indian Railways, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) handles the catering, tourism and online ticketing operations of the railways. IRCTC is famous for changing the face of railway ticketing in India. In 2003, with about six lakh registered users, the IRCTC website had become one of the largest and the fastest growing e-commerce websites in the Asia-Pacific region within a short span of its going online. New IRCTC website has drop down navigation, which provides proper information. User guides, Enquiries, General information, Agents, Special offers, IRCTC Zone are the navigation of IRCTC website. This navigation provides information about ticket booking, ticket canceling, browser setting, reservation inquiry, free tickets/gift, etc. You can also get facilities like book hotels, flights, tourist trains, rail packages, holidays, Buddhist train and more.
Screenshot of home page of www.irctc.co.in
Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation Ltd provides online passenger reservation system. A beta version of the revamped website has been launched. This version is claimed to be more user-friendly and efficient. Director Consulting, BroadVision Asia Pacific Region, Subir Agrawal said, “The new interface is intended to increase the number of visitors who book rail tickets using the site.” The website is being looked after by BroadVision. He said, “We observed that out of the total number of visitors to the IRCTC only 45 per cent book tickets. Our aim is to increase this number of visitors by making the process more interactive and easy.” Anyone can book tickets because for instant booking, there is no need of login/register that is the new steps taken in the website.
For enabling more features in the website, the team is using Web 2.0 platforms and Ajax. The new website would have drop-down options and offer more information on the same web page. Agrawal added, “One need not put a separate request for the train, seats, availability and fare. The intelligent enquiry software would help getting the required information from a single request to central server and that in return bring down the load on the servers.”
The department would have more powerful servers to take up the loads especially during the peak hours of booking season and timings, apart from this. For BroadVision, one of the biggest challenges is server loads, which freezes the systems for minutes during booking the tickets especially at 8 am.
“The number of bookings on an average had been increasing multifold compared to the servers/infrastructure. These bookings and enquiry request are 6-7 times higher during the peak hours than the rest of the day. So while the existing infrastructure is well equipped to handle the daylong traffic, it is the peak hour traffic that clogs servers,” according to Subir Agrawal.
“The average number of booking done in a day is around 3 lakh in comparison to a thousand booking done some years ago,” shared by him. According to him, “New-age technologies like virtualization are already being tested, but even they have their limitation,” and “The best suit would be if we could get more 40-50 servers just for the peak hours to share the load, but none of the systems integrators today provide such facility on rent or any other ways.”
Central Reservation System (CRS) maintained by Indian Railways, the transaction gateway (maintained by respective banks) and finally the provider of web applications (BroadVision) are three key elements that come into play while booking. Subir Agrawal added, “The three need to collaborate together to get the best solution forward. IRCTC statistics suggest that in a month the success rate on transaction for bookings done by credit cards is around 72-75 per cent, while in case of net banking/debit card, it is around 67-70 per cent.” In the country, IRCTC is the most crowded website.
Login at New Beta Version of IRCTC Website:
Screenshot of login page of www.irctc.co.in
For logging in, visit at www.irctc.co.in/cgi-bin/beta.dll/irctc/services/home.do. You will see the “login” section at the left hand side of the homepage. Enter your username and password then click on “login” option. If you have forgotten your password then click on “forgot password” option and follow the instructions.
The inside view is completely changed with new icons. Quick links like Booking history, Print Tickets, Cancellation, Refunds, Shubh yatra and file TDR are visible on first page after login. You will find some important announcement and notice from IRCTC under the quick links section.
They have created fast loading menu and java script based search facility in New version. When you plan for the journey, just enter two stations, date and class. It will show you list of all trains with their respective classes. When you select any class of particular train, you will get full details like fair, train number, train type, distance and availability.
If you are new at IRCTC, then click on “sign-up” option. Enter your username, password, security question, your answer, first name, last name, gender, marital status, date of birth, occupation, e-mail ID, mobile, nationality, address, city, state. Pin/zip, country, phone number then click on “submit” option.
Source: http://www.irctc.co.in/cgi-bin/beta.dll/irctc/services/home.do
It’s a quite good website. I m using irctc.co.in web portal from several months and totally satisfied with it’s speed, navigation and it’s so easy for reservation or online booking of any train and cheaper too. Just only need is bank account to pay online for ticket you have purchased.
Some demerits i found is as below:
1 . We can use irctc.co.in at morning to book tatkal ticket because in 90% cases this website is not working in morning.
2 . Some time after make payment, the payment page of bank site can’t be redirected to irctc.
3 . At one time we can book only 6 ticket this is main drawback. Please extend this limit.
Another important point is we can secure our ticket any time and also our ticket remain secure in our account so we can print it when we needed. If we purchase ticket from railway station and in case it lost then we cannot generate it. but in online reservation it is possible.
Sir,
1. New version is a welcome measure. It is fast and definitely time consuming.
2.I had been requesting that there should be provision to book on this site for break journey. Pl arrange to include the same in a modified version at the earliest. I was forced to to PRS today for booking a tkt for break journey.
3. Some time after make payment, the payment page of bank site can’t be redirected to irctc.
4. At one time we can book only 6 ticket this is main drawback. Please extend this limit
Congrats & Long LIVE IRCTC
Dear Sir/Madam,
It is very nice to see the new revised website.
1)It is fast & less time taking.
2)After cancellation of tickets ,If we go to booked histry .It is not showing the ticket cancelled.Still it is showing the booked ticket.pl see for it.
3)After making payments,The page takes some time to check with the bank,afterwords it is showing the session is over.Some time the payments drawn & Ticket is not cming.
It is appriciated that your team works fast for any quirey.Support all the time ,like promt mail reply etc.
Wish you all the best & Good service rendered.
Thanking You.
N D CHAVAN
Executive Engineer(NPCIL)
Sir,
I was trying to tatkal ticket from net since last 2-3 days but unfortunately I was connected after half an hour late due to this I could not get the ticket. So kindly look into the matter and do the needful
Thanks
Dave
overall nice improvemnet, nice navigation, easy to use and speed also improved in irctc beta portal but for last 5 days i m trying to book ticket but when i press find train button it shows “Unable to retrieve train list”, please tell me what should i do to book train ticket at irctc?