Indian Railways’ online ticket booking site IRCTC has an update that will allow passengers to book tickets without any hassle, Rail Minister Piyush Goyal said Thursday, launching the improved version of the IRCTC website. In 2014, the Next Generation Electronic Ticketing (NGeT) system was launched to provide seamless electronic ticketing services: higher booking loads and better user interface, via IRCTC. In 2018, it was updated with custom features such as checking train availability without the need to log in, probability of confirmation, etc. This time, access to those features has been made easier.
These are the new features:
1. Passengers will be able to book tickets, meals and accommodation at the same time.
2. Predictive input suggestions using Artificial Intelligence will be given to the passenger when entering the station so that they do not waste much time searching for the station.
3. The status of the refund can be checked on your user account page.
4. Destinations can be saved in the “regular”, “favorites” tabs so that one can easily book tickets for those destinations.
5. Availability for all classes will be displayed along with the respective rates for all trains on the same page. Previously, seat availability and fares for each train could only be viewed after clicking on that train individually.
6. “A ‘caching system’ has been introduced in the backend to provide the availability status. This will avoid delays in loading availabilities. In case of tickets on the waiting list, their ‘confirmation probability’ is shown. Previously, this had to be verified for each waitlist state separately.
7. Availability for other dates can be toggled on the page itself.
8. The details of the trip will also be displayed on the payment page so that if there are any errors, they can be rectified.
9. The website has built-in features to enhance cyber security through the use of proper captchas.
10. It will also update seat availability in real time.
Today, this IRCTC e-ticketing website has more than 6 million million active users, who use it to book more than 8 million tickets per day. About 83% of the total booked train tickets are booked through this online system.
.
