Booking train tickets at peak time? IRCTC's new upgrade could change the experience

Indian Railways is preparing a major technology upgrade for its online ticketing system, aimed at making bookings more reliable during peak hours when a large number of passengers try to access the platform simultaneously.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) plans to strengthen the infrastructure behind its website and app, while also introducing a backup system to reduce disruptions.

IRCTC plans major infrastructure upgrade

The first part of the overhaul involves upgrading the Next Generation e-Ticketing (NGET) platform. The changes will cover servers, storage, networking and software, with the aim of handling a much higher number of bookings per minute.

As per The Indian Express, IRCTC explained, “There are two things we are trying to introduce. One is the NGET Infra Refresh. NGET is Next Generation e-Ticketing, which is the platform for IRCTC. We are trying to upgrade its hardware by the storage, servers, and networking, plus the software. So we will increase. Like you have seen, we have reached around 37,000 tickets per minute. This may increase to more than 1 lakh and all. This has been done with PRF modernisation, around INR 150 crores has been infused into it.”

The upgrade is expected to increase the platform's capacity beyond its current peak of around 37,000 tickets per minute.

Backup system to tackle outages

IRCTC is also working on an active-active disaster recovery system. The idea is to keep ticketing services running even if the primary system faces an outage.

“We are also trying to go for an active-active disaster recovery, because sometimes if the website is down, then the passengers will have to face and we are very much behind that 1 minute or 2 minutes. This becomes the golden hour for us. If we will have a disaster recovery, most probably coming up at Secunderabad.”

New IRCTC website already launched

The planned infrastructure changes come about a month after IRCTC introduced a beta version of its redesigned website.

The updated platform features a simpler interface, with unnecessary CAPTCHA checks, pop-ups and flashing graphics removed. Seat availability across different classes can also be viewed together, while the booking process has fewer steps.

Another feature allows passengers to save their details, reducing the need to enter the same information during every booking.

The redesigned website was developed using suggestions shared by students from Malaviya National Institute of Technology (MNIT) during their interaction with Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw.