IRCTC ticket booking delays: What caused the website slowdown?

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has clarified that its online ticket booking portal was not down on Tuesday, November 10, after several users reported difficulties accessing the website on X. The railway PSU attributed the complaints to a surge in simultaneous login attempts, which may have slowed access for some passengers.

IRCTC said the e-ticketing service was functioning normally and that the delays were temporary. It added that the website and mobile application experience a sharp rise in traffic during festive seasons, holidays and peak booking periods, when large numbers of passengers try to reserve tickets at the same time.

Festive rush leads to login delays

The demand for train tickets typically rises during Diwali and Chhath Puja, putting additional pressure on IRCTC's online reservation platform. The corporation said the high volume of concurrent login attempts may have affected access for some users.

“During festive seasons, holidays, and peak booking periods, particularly during Diwali and Chhath Puja, the demand for railway tickets increases manifold as millions of passengers simultaneously attempt to log in to book tickets, resulting in exceptionally high traffic on the online reservation platform. Due to this exceptionally high volume of concurrent login attempts on the website and mobile applications, some users may have encountered delayed login, etc. These issues were temporary, and e-ticketing service through all the channels is normal now,” it said.

IRCTC added that it is working on technology upgrades, infrastructure improvements and process changes to make online reservations smoother.

Nearly 89 per cent of reserved tickets booked online

Online reservations now account for nearly 89 per cent of all reserved train tickets. Between June 2025 and June 2026, passengers booked 65.08 crore reserved tickets through the Passenger Reservation System (PRS). Of these, 57.90 crore were booked online.

However, heavy traffic during key booking windows has remained a challenge. IRCTC has previously acknowledged disruptions during the 8 am opening of the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) and Tatkal bookings, which begin at 10 am for AC classes and 11 am for non-AC classes.

IRCTC plans major system upgrades

To address these issues, IRCTC is upgrading its Next Generation e-Ticketing (NGET) system, introduced in 2014 to improve booking capacity and passenger experience.

The planned changes include an infrastructure upgrade covering servers, storage, networking and software. The corporation is also developing an active-active disaster recovery system, designed to keep services running if one system encounters an outage.