Overhaul of reservation quotas needed.
The time has come for Indian Railways to redress the balance in favour of normal fare paying customers, over too many years various reservation quotas have been added, changed and increased, leaving normal fare paying customers with much too few seats/berths available on the general quota, and as a result, giving too many opportunities for fraudulent behaviour by touts, station staff and the occasional TTE or RPF officer.
Railway authorities are forever looking at ways to reduce the fraudulent behaviour, but their efforts are just complicating matters and frustrating customers, the reaction to the recent increase in cancellation fees being a good example.
I believe Indian Railways can make changes hear, there and everywhere, but have little effect other than frustrating it’s customers, I believe the time has come for a fundamental rethink of reservation quotas and the confusing effect they have for waitlisted customers.
There are too many reservation quotas, they have slowly squeezed the general quota to a fraction of the size it should be, the following example is certainly not the worst I could find, but for simplicity I’ve used an ‘end to end’ train, one that doesn’t have any remote location or pooled quotas.
Konkan Kanya Express (train 10111), Mumbai CST to Madgaon.
Sleeper Class has the following numbers available to each reservation quota (’m using Sleeper Class as an example because the larger numbers help to clarify the issue)
General 360
Tatkal 119
Premium Tatkal 119
Lower Berth 44
Defence 10
Foreign Tourist 6
Ladies 6
Handicapped 2
TTE 5
RAC 132 (66 berths)
total 737
That leaves 55 berths for the HO quota
11 Sleeper Class carriages = 792 total
So only 45% of tickets are available to the general quota, even if you add the lower berth and ladies quotas, it’s still only 51.7%
I’ve seen worse examples, on the same train 40% of 1A berths are held for the HO quota, many trains have 12 RAC places per Sleeper Class carriage, Darjeeling Mail for example.
The problem with the current system is, on a normal day, the chief reservation supervisor can have 100 berths to play with in Sleeper Class on the above train, this is crazy, and not fair to a waitlisted customer who booked months ago
Indian Railways needs to move to a system where 85%+ tickets are sold on the general quota (for an end to end train), and in addition, they need to slowly change the waitlist situation to give more clarity, I suggest the following.
End the Foreign tourist quota, NRI’s and foreign tourists will just have to book ahead like everybody else, very few countries have foreign tourist quotas for their railways. (a sweetener for foreigners would be to allow access to IRCTC using a foreign credit/debit card, only Amex allowed, we have to use the very poor Cleartrip website)
End the Parliament quota, they mostly fly, if they don’t, they can use Tatkal or in emergency, request to be moved to the HO quota.
End the Lower Berth Quota, keep the existing booking system (that automatically puts eligable customers in those berths), but once the general quota starts issuing RAC tickets, the remaining Lower Berth places should be automatically moved to the general quota.
End the Defence quota, they can use Tatkal or request HO quota.
Reduce HO quota by at least half, this can be very big on some trains and is possibly the root of too many fraudulent opportunities.
End premium Tatkal.
Reduce Tatkal to no more than 10% of the total berth per class.
Tatkal, HO and any remaining reservation quotas should total no more than 15% of total seats/berths.
Reduce RAC places, there should be a maximum or 3 berths used in SL & 3A, 2 berths in 2A and none in FC, the aim should be to make sure all customers on a train have full sleeping berths and don’t impact on other customers experiences, this means some berths occasionally stay empty, but overall customer satisfaction will be improved.
All those extra berths would be available on the general quota
The above could only work if it is seen to be fair, and is backed by measures that reduce speculative booking, I therefore suggest…
An advance reservation period of 30 days for all trains.
A minimum cancellation charge of 25%.
A cancellation charge of 50% for cancelling less than 2 days before train.
A cancellation charge of 100% if cancelled after chart preparation (with an appeal system for certain situations)
Normal Tatkal booking could stay as it is, but any Tatkal waitlist should be dependant only on Tatkal cancellations, and not impact at all on the general waitlist.
When system fully in place and understood, there will be up to 50% more places available on the general quota, there will also be a lot less cancellations, so waitlisted tickets must be reduced accordingly.
Indian Railways could slowly move to a system where waitlisted tickets would be much more unlikely to get confirmed, maybe as low as 10%, and this would benefit the customer, at the moment a WL3 in 1A on the Tamil Nadu Express is highly unlikely to get confirmed, yet on some trains WL100 in Sleeper Class often gets confirmed, it’s very confusing.
Once the general quota is increased, the ARP is reduced, and cancellation fees raised, cancellations would reduce dramatically, and it would be possible to show details of how many tickets in that class and the chances of confirmation of the available waitlisted ticket (before purchase), even if it’s bad news for the potential customer, at least they know to look at other alternatives.
There’s also different fare structures for Garib Rath, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto and ‘passenger’ trains, then there’s the new Gatimaan Express again with different fares, then there’ll be a new fare structure for any high speed line of the future, add to this the Tatkal, Premium Tatkal and other potential ‘dynamic’ fare structures and it gets very confusing.
Indian Railways needs to rethink the different rates, I feel that within a couple of years there will be no pantry cars on trains, so that should get rid of the food aspect of the Rajdhani/Shatabdi etc., so then they need to have 2 fares, a super fast and non superfast, but the superfast criteria needs to be looked at, at the very least a minimum overall speed of 60km per hour.
The above would take a few years to implement, and would lose Indian Railways some money, but this can be made up by annual increases in the fare at a reasonable rate, better to have upfront honest increased charges than all the hidden charges we have today. more
Railway authorities are forever looking at ways to reduce the fraudulent behaviour, but their efforts are just complicating matters and frustrating customers, the reaction to the recent increase in cancellation fees being a good example.
I believe Indian Railways can make changes hear, there and everywhere, but have little effect other than frustrating it’s customers, I believe the time has come for a fundamental rethink of reservation quotas and the confusing effect they have for waitlisted customers.
There are too many reservation quotas, they have slowly squeezed the general quota to a fraction of the size it should be, the following example is certainly not the worst I could find, but for simplicity I’ve used an ‘end to end’ train, one that doesn’t have any remote location or pooled quotas.
Konkan Kanya Express (train 10111), Mumbai CST to Madgaon.
Sleeper Class has the following numbers available to each reservation quota (’m using Sleeper Class as an example because the larger numbers help to clarify the issue)
General 360
Tatkal 119
Premium Tatkal 119
Lower Berth 44
Defence 10
Foreign Tourist 6
Ladies 6
Handicapped 2
TTE 5
RAC 132 (66 berths)
total 737
That leaves 55 berths for the HO quota
11 Sleeper Class carriages = 792 total
So only 45% of tickets are available to the general quota, even if you add the lower berth and ladies quotas, it’s still only 51.7%
I’ve seen worse examples, on the same train 40% of 1A berths are held for the HO quota, many trains have 12 RAC places per Sleeper Class carriage, Darjeeling Mail for example.
The problem with the current system is, on a normal day, the chief reservation supervisor can have 100 berths to play with in Sleeper Class on the above train, this is crazy, and not fair to a waitlisted customer who booked months ago
Indian Railways needs to move to a system where 85%+ tickets are sold on the general quota (for an end to end train), and in addition, they need to slowly change the waitlist situation to give more clarity, I suggest the following.
End the Foreign tourist quota, NRI’s and foreign tourists will just have to book ahead like everybody else, very few countries have foreign tourist quotas for their railways. (a sweetener for foreigners would be to allow access to IRCTC using a foreign credit/debit card, only Amex allowed, we have to use the very poor Cleartrip website)
End the Parliament quota, they mostly fly, if they don’t, they can use Tatkal or in emergency, request to be moved to the HO quota.
End the Lower Berth Quota, keep the existing booking system (that automatically puts eligable customers in those berths), but once the general quota starts issuing RAC tickets, the remaining Lower Berth places should be automatically moved to the general quota.
End the Defence quota, they can use Tatkal or request HO quota.
Reduce HO quota by at least half, this can be very big on some trains and is possibly the root of too many fraudulent opportunities.
End premium Tatkal.
Reduce Tatkal to no more than 10% of the total berth per class.
Tatkal, HO and any remaining reservation quotas should total no more than 15% of total seats/berths.
Reduce RAC places, there should be a maximum or 3 berths used in SL & 3A, 2 berths in 2A and none in FC, the aim should be to make sure all customers on a train have full sleeping berths and don’t impact on other customers experiences, this means some berths occasionally stay empty, but overall customer satisfaction will be improved.
All those extra berths would be available on the general quota
The above could only work if it is seen to be fair, and is backed by measures that reduce speculative booking, I therefore suggest…
An advance reservation period of 30 days for all trains.
A minimum cancellation charge of 25%.
A cancellation charge of 50% for cancelling less than 2 days before train.
A cancellation charge of 100% if cancelled after chart preparation (with an appeal system for certain situations)
Normal Tatkal booking could stay as it is, but any Tatkal waitlist should be dependant only on Tatkal cancellations, and not impact at all on the general waitlist.
When system fully in place and understood, there will be up to 50% more places available on the general quota, there will also be a lot less cancellations, so waitlisted tickets must be reduced accordingly.
Indian Railways could slowly move to a system where waitlisted tickets would be much more unlikely to get confirmed, maybe as low as 10%, and this would benefit the customer, at the moment a WL3 in 1A on the Tamil Nadu Express is highly unlikely to get confirmed, yet on some trains WL100 in Sleeper Class often gets confirmed, it’s very confusing.
Once the general quota is increased, the ARP is reduced, and cancellation fees raised, cancellations would reduce dramatically, and it would be possible to show details of how many tickets in that class and the chances of confirmation of the available waitlisted ticket (before purchase), even if it’s bad news for the potential customer, at least they know to look at other alternatives.
There’s also different fare structures for Garib Rath, Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Duronto and ‘passenger’ trains, then there’s the new Gatimaan Express again with different fares, then there’ll be a new fare structure for any high speed line of the future, add to this the Tatkal, Premium Tatkal and other potential ‘dynamic’ fare structures and it gets very confusing.
Indian Railways needs to rethink the different rates, I feel that within a couple of years there will be no pantry cars on trains, so that should get rid of the food aspect of the Rajdhani/Shatabdi etc., so then they need to have 2 fares, a super fast and non superfast, but the superfast criteria needs to be looked at, at the very least a minimum overall speed of 60km per hour.
The above would take a few years to implement, and would lose Indian Railways some money, but this can be made up by annual increases in the fare at a reasonable rate, better to have upfront honest increased charges than all the hidden charges we have today. more
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Very Informative. Obviously u hv done a lot of study n research on the Indian Railways. Hope the authorities read yr mail and act on it more
Nov 23
The railways ministry is not interested to do all such hope works neither they are interested in giving any sorts of concession and comforts to the passengers knowingly that ir is their monopoly and the people have no option but to rush to the indian rails. What they are interested in is as to how more and more money could be snatched from the pockets of the users in different ways without offering any extended facilities & comforts. more
Nov 16
Guess IR is paying attention! We welcome more feedback on the reservation and fare issues for more speedier and constructive solutions. more
Nov 16
This Diwali I travelled to my Home town Kanpur by Rajdhani (Dibrugarh) my initial waitlist which I booked was 11 to 14 however I was lucky it got confirmed on the day of journey.....the wailist receded to 2 to 5..... Surprising there were hordes of passengers traveling in the premium trail in almost all bogies I traversed and observed the same in a couple of them mainly 3 rd AC....all these had a waitlist and a dozen of them bought tickets from touts ..... all literate It was surprising to believe still people are buying tickets from touts and coolies what a nexus. Infront of our births there was a young couple the person was working in armed forces and travelling with his wife he bought a ticket from tout who promsed him a confirmed ticket ... all the way from NDLS to Kanpur he frantically kept on making calls to the tout ...who eventually stopped taking call ..... Then he sent his colleagues and police and what not on phone but even after tthis real drama they hardly got a confirmed ticket but assurance that they shall get a confirmed ticket enroute from Kanpur Wonder what happended to them ....... But salute to nexus more
Nov 15
