Indian Railways to prepare reservation charts 8 hours before departure

Hyderabad: Indian Railways is making key changes to its Passenger Reservation System (PRS) to improve the ticketing experience. A major reform is the advancement of reservation chart preparation. Instead of the current practice of preparing charts four hours before train departure, they will now be prepared eight hours in advance.

For trains departing before 2.00 pm, charts will be ready by 9.00 pm the previous evening. This move aims to reduce uncertainty for passengers with waitlisted tickets and help those travelling from distant or suburban areas plan better.

Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw recently reviewed the progress of these changes and directed officials to implement them in phases to avoid disruption. He said the system should be smart, transparent, accessible and focused on passenger convenience.

The upgraded PRS, being developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), is expected to be in place by December 2025. The new system will be able to handle 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute, compared to the current capacity of 32,000. Enquiry capacity will increase from 4 lakh to over 40 lakh per minute.

Passengers will benefit from a more user-friendly, multilingual interface. The system will also offer seat selection options, a fare calendar, and integrated services for students, patients and Divyangjan. From July 1, 2025, only authenticated users will be allowed to book Tatkal tickets on the IRCTC website and mobile app. OTP-based authentication will be introduced by the end of July. Verification will be done using Aadhaar or other government-issued IDs linked to DigiLocker. These steps are part of Indian Railways’ ongoing efforts to modernise services and make travel planning easier for passengers.