End of tatkal ticketing booking woes? Indian Railways spends Rs 1,000 cr to revamp 40-year-old IRCTC reservation system, increases capacity to handle 1.25 lakh tickets per minute

Indian Railways is preparing to launch a new high-speed reservation platform that will replace its nearly 40-year-old Passenger Reservation System (PRS). The upgraded digital infrastructure is expected to go live in the coming months and significantly modernise railway ticket booking across the country.  

The overhaul comes after years of passenger complaints about slow servers, booking failures and system crashes, especially during peak ticket booking hours. The new system aims to ensure faster processing, improved stability and a smoother experience for millions of daily railway passengers.  

Railway ticket reservations are currently managed through the e-ticketing portal operated by Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation. The upgraded reservation platform will strengthen the backend infrastructure that powers online train ticket bookings across India. 

The Railway Ministry is investing nearly Rs 1,000 crore to overhaul the Passenger Reservation System and upgrade the digital backbone that serves around 23 million passengers every day. The move is expected to significantly improve system performance and reliability. 

Once the upgraded platform becomes operational, travellers will be able to book tickets more efficiently without losing reservations to automated bots. The new architecture will support up to five times the current booking capacity while also improving platform security. 

Officials say the PRS overhaul is an important step towards reducing waiting lists in the long term. However, eliminating waiting lists will also depend on increasing train capacity and improving overall railway infrastructure alongside digital upgrades.  

The Railway Board approved the PRS Modernisation Phase-2 project in 2022 with an allocation of Rs 183 crore. The project is being executed by Centre for Railway Information Systems, and preparations for the rollout are already in advanced stages. 

The PRS has been in operation since 1985. It was originally designed to run for about 15 years, but it has continued working for nearly four decades. This makes it one of the oldest and most heavily used ticketing systems in the world. 

The system was built using Fortran 77, one of the earliest high-level programming languages. The new platform will run on open-source technologies, including Red Hat’s enterprise Linux and other software. This change means no single company will own the core code or control access to the system. (Image Credit: Freepik)