RRB Practice 16

The Passenger Reservation System of Indian Railways is a technological marvel that handles tens of millions of transactions annually, providing berth reservations on over 2,000 mail and express trains to passengers booking from approximately 10,000 computerised booking offices, the IRCTC website, and the IRCTC mobile application, integrating data across the country in real time. The computerisation of reservations began in the 1980s and was initially implemented in major city booking offices before being progressively extended to smaller stations and eventually to the internet channel. The Centre for Railway Information Systems, known as CRIS, developed and maintains the Passenger Reservation System, which is one of the largest real-time transaction processing systems in the world. The system manages the complex allocation of accommodation on trains according to a quota structure that reserves a portion of the berths in each class on each train for different categories of passengers — the general quota available to all passengers, quotas for the boarding and destination stations, remote location quotas, tourist quotas, emergency quotas managed by the Chief Reservation Supervisor, and various concessional quotas for senior citizens, differently abled persons, students, and other categories. The waitlist and reservation against cancellation systems manage the very large demand that often exceeds available accommodation on popular trains, particularly during peak seasons. A passenger with a waitlisted ticket is given a progressive waitlist number, and as passengers with confirmed bookings cancel their reservations, the waitlisted passengers move up the list and are confirmed in turn. The reservation against cancellation category fills berths that become available from confirmed quotas after chart preparation at a specified time before departure, and a certain number of RAC passengers are entitled to share a lower berth two to a berth until one of them is upgraded to a fully confirmed berth through a cancellation. The Tatkal quota was introduced to cater to passengers with urgent travel needs who require accommodation at short notice, with tickets in this category available 24 hours before the scheduled departure of the train at a premium over the normal fare. The chart preparation process, carried out a few hours before departure, locks the reservation for each coach and generates the reservation chart displayed on the coach, allowing passengers to locate their allotted berths. Unreserved travel, in general second class coaches and general class compartments, remains an important option for the large number of passengers who travel without advance planning or cannot afford reserved class fares. Indian Railways issues millions of monthly season tickets to suburban commuters in Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, and other cities, where suburban rail services carry dense passenger loads on fixed routes at high frequency. The integration of IRCTC with UPI payment platforms, mobile wallets, and internet banking has made ticket booking accessible to a very large segment of the population, though efforts continue to improve access for passengers without smartphones or internet connectivity through agent booking networks and common service centres.