Advancing the Tatkal Ticket Booking Experienceđ
There would hardly be an Indian reading this who hasnât traveled on a train and almost everyone would be aware of the pain of getting a confirmed Tatkal ticket.
What a reliefđ it is when it works seamlessly, the excitement about the travel plan finally materializing, the anticipation of the amusing train journey, and the easy booking experience thanks to IRCTC. On the other hand, most would be aware of the frustration of failing to get even 1 confirmed seat at 10 amđ or 11 am when the tatkal ticket window for AC and sleeper opens respectively.
Plenty of memes keep floating every day highlighting one of the popular problems plaguing the passengers.
You can surely get entertained checking more memes here
Once you you are done, Letâs dive into some stats:đ
Out of Around 16 Lakh (1.6 million) tickets booked every day, 80%+ are now booked online via IRCTC portals, thatâs some massive digitization some in part due to recent covid as well but otherwise, too, Ministry of Railways has been doing a fantastic job of bringing convenience on your smartphone. IRCTC has a capacity to support an astounding 25000+ bookings per minute. The railway seat allocation problem is itself a complex algorithm given the variety of quotas, preferences, etc, salute to those keeping it more or less seamless.
~2â3 Lakh of these are tatkal tickets, most of which usually get sold out in the early 10â15 mins of booking when it opens at 10/11 am. For these seats, I estimate around a million individuals maybe trying their luck & roughly end up wasting 30 minutes (20 minutes min for those trying online and up to a few hrs for those doing at counters depending on when they start to queue up)
Thatâs a staggering 500,000 hours lost daily trying your luck winning the lottery by ensuring you have the right internet connection, IRCTC doesnât log you out, having the right payment instrument and balance in it, and a long checklist of items that need to be perfectly in sync along with your stars to get you the ticket you desired and spent maybe more hours planning as well.
It surely is a demand-supply problem, especially in peak season on high-traffic routes and without more transport options canât be solved but the experience of going through the process can be made much better for sure.
Solutionđ¤
The solution to this complex problem which has plagued the train booking experience for the most part of the last 2 decades seems possible in a simple alteration today but was probably not possible before given the lack of smartphones and digitization.
Since anyway ticket booking has become a random luck by chance event, why not make it truly random eradicating the factors of someone having a fast fiber internet or fast finger typing or simply more means in all aspects?
Instead of opening the tatkal at 10 am and putting all load at once on the IRCTC servers and million Indians, letâs accept all requests for ticket reservation from passengers before 10 am. Anytime when booking starts (currently starts 120 days before) up to the existing tatkal ticket opening window one can submit and cancel any requests they want to make for the ticket to be booked with payment.
Within say 10â15 mins the system can allot tickets evaluating the submitted request and send a confirmation/failure message to all. Refunds can be processed online direct to the payment instrument or at the reservation counter if paid in cash or the amount can be utilized to attempt another tatkal reservation either for the AC class or the similar 11 am opening for Sleeper class.
Fair for all, not just extra fare for all.
Currently, IRCTC has had to ramp up the server capacity to handle 25000+ tickets per minute due to the heavily skewed demand of tickets peaking at 10 and 11. With this system that load would likely be significantly reduced apart from the major benefit of customers not being worried about being able to log in on time.
If with this 20 mins of average time saved for 1 million passengers, we can surely be more productive as a nation (for sure in the early hours of every day) and the erratic load that other participants of the system like payment gateways and banks must manage would be reduced too.
This idea has been on my radar for more than 5 years, but Iâve tried to convince myself that it canât be that easy! Can it be, letâs see :)
What could be potential problem areas for this? â ď¸
Refunds
specifically for cash customers at reservation counters.
We could continue with disbursing cash based on a receipt that one gets if a counter submission of a request for a ticket has been made. This could be done post 10:30 or if the railways deem fit at a later time or a direct bank account can be requested at the time of receiving the request since every Indian now has one.
There could be some provision for Tatkal ticket cancellation immediately after getting an allotment to enable the submission of multiple requests but with a decent penalty to avoid false bookings.
Can one submit requests for multiple trains based on priority/preference? When we donât get a ticket for the desired train, we try another but at the cost of having lost the precious early 2â5 minutes, the requests system can support a preference order if the first fails, it will continue trying till the last of the list.
The maximum payment in such cases can be taken as part of the request pre-payment. While allotting tickets, the order of execution could be based on train number. 01212 train allotment is cleared first and then 52313 goes in. There could be some more technicalities to handle here. This could be similar to the Vikalp preference option implementation, though not sure how useful it has been. Do add those in a comment below
What happens to tickets remaining unallocated?
The existing tatkal process can resume at say 10:30 for the AC tickets and similarly for 11:30
Are there better systems in other countries?
I tried some searches and some chatGPT prompts but didnât manage to get a good answer!
The ability to be able to put in a tatkal request anytime from 120 days before till ARP (Advance reservation period) opens up seems magical to me as we all have to just wait peacefully for the clock to hit 10:10 or 10:15 and an alert can hit our phones mentioning whether we are hit the lottery or was it Better Luck Next Time!
I believe the fairest system in these cases when demand is extremely high and is biased towards those with means, randomness should get a chance as the right(literally) answer.
Hey, this sounds like how IPO allotments are done!
Yes, the solution has always been right there in front of our eyes and why not train seat allotment can be done this way, leaving no scope for complaints apart from blaming your luck!
What about dynamic prices for premium tatkal seats?
Since they are still a small portion of tickets, could remain the same or a partial payment facility be applied which means in the next 2â3 hours one has to pay the balance and get the ticket confirmed under the new tatkal system.
How could the Railways test this?
Implementation of this can be tested for some trains which have high Tatkal demand and then extended in a phased manner to all if it receives the right response
Extra Side Benefit:
Apart from all the convenience to users, savings on server costs, and positive transparent brand image, Railways might be able to get some good interest income or early revenue, given that instead of Tatkal payments, money could be deposited against a request days ahead! For sure most people will still try to submit their request at the last moment trying to defer the payment till late-stage
What do you think of the proposal? Are we ready now, do comment with your thoughts below? Any other better ideas to make this experience smooth, do share them as well.
Trying to see if posting a solution can make a difference this time than just complaining! Wish me luck and I hope better luck for you too when you book train tickets on the new Tatkal booking
References for stats:
[1] IRCTC Annual Reports
