Indian Railways is set to replace its four-decade-old Passenger Reservation System, the backbone of train ticketing in the country since 1986, with a fully overhauled, higher-capacity system from August this year.
Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw on Thursday chaired a review meeting at Rail Bhavan in New Delhi, directing officials to ensure passengers face no disruption during the switchover. Ministers of State for Railways V. Somanna and Ravneet Singh Bittu were also present at the meeting.
Railway reservation system used since 1986
The current reservation system has been in place since 1986, nearly four decades. To put that in context, it predates the internet in India, mobile phones, and UPI by a wide margin. While it has been patched and updated in small ways over the years, the core architecture has largely stayed the same.
How ticket booking has already changed
Internet-based train ticketing was introduced in 2002. What started as a convenience feature has now become the primary way Indians book train tickets. Today, roughly 88% of all train ticket demand in the country is met through online platforms. The physical ticket counter, for most passengers, has become an afterthought, as per the PIB data.
The RailOne app
Central to the Railways’ digital push is the RailOne app, launched in July last year. In under a year, it has been downloaded over 3.5 crore times, including 3.16 crore on Android and around 33 lakh on Apple devices.
Every day, about 9.29 lakh tickets are booked through the app. Of these, 7.2 lakh are unreserved tickets (including platform tickets) and 2.09 lakh are reserved tickets, as per PIB data.
The app is designed as a one-stop shop for most railway needs. Beyond booking and cancellation, it shows live train running status, platform numbers, coach positions, and waiting list updates in real time. Passengers can also raise complaints through Rail Madad and order food to their seat, all from within the same app.
The waitlist prediction feature
One of the more practically useful additions this year is an AI-based prediction that tells passengers, at the time of booking, how likely their waitlisted ticket is to get confirmed.
For anyone who has ever booked a waitlisted train ticket and spent days anxiously checking its status, this is a meaningful improvement. The accuracy of this prediction has reportedly gone up from 53% earlier to 94% now.
What it costs the government to keep fares low
Indian Railways is not run as a profit-maximising operation, at least not on the passenger side. In 2024–25, the Railways provided a subsidy of Rs 60,239 crore on passenger tickets, as per PIB data. In practical terms, this means that for every Rs 100 it costs to move a passenger, Railways charges only Rs 57. The average discount across all passengers works out to 43%.
What passengers should know
The Railways has said the transition to the new system will be managed carefully to avoid booking failures, errors, or any disruption to ticketing. No specific downtime windows have been announced yet.
The Minister’s directive to officials was specifically aimed at making the switchover invisible to the end user; the passenger should, in theory, not notice when the old system is turned off, and the new one takes over.