Indian Railways : Indian Railways has introduced a revolutionary change to its ticketing service which it claims will end payments for ‘millions’ of passengers.
This revolutionary concept which is currently being rolled out in a phased manner across the vast rail network of the country, will truly be a game changer for the Indian Railways as it goes a long way in removing the transaction and digital divide challenges which are commonly associated with the existing online train ticket booking system as well as ensuring total customer convenience.
Under the new system, formally titled as “Deferred Payment Ticketing System”, but dubbed “Book Now, Pay Later” by railwaymen, passengers can book their tickets through the reservation counters and pay later. The move follows months of piloting routes, which proved that the flexible approach was both technically feasible and valued by passengers.
For the millions of Indians who use the country’s far-reaching rail network every day, knowing how these changes might affect their travels is critical to staying on top of the changing world of train travel.
While digital ticketing has expanded significantly in recent years, the new system recognizes that payment is still a major friction point for many travellers, especially those in rural areas, the digitally-excluded, and people who have to make last-minute journeys.
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Indian Railways How the New Fine and Ticketing System Works
With the ‘No Money’ booking system, the way passengers can book their journey has changed on a number of key points: • Long term advance booking is no longer possible.
Reservation First, Payment Later: According to the new scheme, passengers can book confirmed tickets across counter as well as through app or website without having to make the entire payment at the time of booking.
The ticket will be provisionally confirmed only for a certain period of time and then after the payment is cleared the final confirmed ticket will be sent to the passenger.
Payment windows in Tiers: The time to complete the payment setup for journey timing is as follow:
For a reservation within 24 hours: Payment has to be done 4 hours before the departure.
For travel within 3 days: Payment window is up to 24 hours from the time of booking
For future reservations (bookings more than 3 days in advance): Payment may be made up to 72 hours after booking.
Diverse Payment Channels: After booking is confirmed, passengers may choose the following methods to make a payment:
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UPI at any time in transaction window
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Cash at railway counters or any of the Authorised Agents.
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Railway wallet points or Railway wallet loyalty points
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Bank transfers to the assigned virtual account number
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Authorized service outlets such as India Post offices
Process of Confirmation: Passengers are provided with a Provisional Booking ID (PBID), through SMS and e-mail, after successful booking of the ticket. This number is proof of booking until the last sector being issued, finalizing reservation generates a PNR.
Rajesh Kumar, Station Manager at New Delhi Railway Station explains the utility of the feature, “Over the years we have received many complaints where passengers manage to book tickets before tatkal inventory disappears but face payment gateway and bank server issues. This way you lock in their seat and allow them some time to make payment without losing the reservation.”
Indian Railways Timeline for Implementation and Station Types
The deployment is phased according to the category of the station and the technological maturity:
Phase 1 (Completed):
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All A1 and A Category (capital cities) stations
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Rajdhani, Shatabdi and Duronto trains across the network
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OutputQuotesAll tatkal bookings through out the reservation system
Phase 2 (Current State):
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B and C class railways stations in state capitals and others.
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All high traffic mail/express trains
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Special trains and seasonal specials
Phase 3 (scheduled from next quarter):
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Rest all other stations remaining across All Categories
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Passenger trains and unreserved ticketing
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International (To/From India/ Bangladesh and India/ Nepal) 1.
Sunita Patel, who arrived a day ago from her village in Madhya Pradesh, recounts the process: “I booked my ticket on Janmitra Kendra in our village, got the booking confirmation instantly, and my son did the money transfer through PhonePe the following day. “Before, I’d have to get the full amount lined up before I could even try to book, and it was hard sometimes.”
Indian Railways The Science behind the System
The provision is enabled through a series of tech innovations that have been designed specifically for this project:
Virtual Holding: Under the railway reservation system, a concept of “holding the ticket” is being introduced whereby the ticket can be held, without payment, for a short period for booking under reflectory condition.
This necessitated massive changes to the underlying booking engine that had been “payment-first” since computers became involved in the webfare game.
Unified Payment Interface: New Railway Payment Integration Platform (RPIP) will enable the Railways to store and process payments, maintain accounts and help manage the allocation of collections for different service offerings such as passenger ticketing, freight, etc. across multiple payment providers.
Verification Mechanism: In order to avoid abuse, the system includes mobile number verification, booking limits allowed per user in specific time slots, and a dynamic risk assessment algorithm adjusting the payment window period, according to the popularity of the route and history of the passenger.
GRaceful Degradation Protocol – In the event of high traffic or technical issues, the system incorporates fallback that can temporarily roll-back to manual forms of payment but continue to keep passengers’ place in the queue.
Vikram Singh, one of the senior CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems) engineers who developed the system, elaborates on those backend challenges “The railway reservation system carries out over 800,000 bookings every day during peak.
Designing a holding device without breaking this volume was like swapping a train’s engine in midrun. We took a parallel-processing approach which preserved booking integrity and overlaid a layer of payment flexibility on top.”
Indian Railways Advantages to other classes of passengers
Specific benefits are provided to particular types of traveler and are as follows:
Passengers in rural area: Passengers wishing to purchase ticket from small towns ( which is under equipped with the Computerised Reservation System) and faraway from banks, would be able to reserve ticket from these centers and make the payment to family members, via a depute bank Agents ( KIOSK banking model) which may easily come to the village and vice versa.
Business Travelers and Groups: Businesses can book tickets on an instant basis and make the payment after approval process for travel or expense settlement. Also, group leaders can now ‘hold’ seats for all of his or her party without paying in full upfront.
Medical/Death Emergency: Passengers may need to travel for immediate medical reasons or for a family member’s immediate death, and they can book travel and fly without any worries about payments.Adds one less thing to think about to their already less than ideal situation.
Senior Citizens & Physically Challenged Passengers: Senior citizens & disabled passengers have issues managing digital payments and can now book tickets themselves and get the payment done through family members / locally available people or at the nearby post offices.
This suits Meena Kumari, a senior citizen from Kanpur: “I am not comfortable online (for payments) at this age and used to ask my grandson to do it for me. With it, I can now go to the station to book the ticket and ask him to finish the payment from his office on his phone, so I can save my reservation all the time.”
Indian Railways Dealing with System Misuse Issues
Railroad officials acknowledge possible abuse dangers and have taken several precautions:
Fine Graining Blacklisting: Users who book and fail to pay again and agian will be subject to gradually tightening restrictions, such as reduced time limit of booking or suspended booking eligibility for a limited time.
Δ Identity Verification Improvement: Further verification steps can be added for high value and double bookings like OTP verification and secondary contact verification.
Maximum of Two Pending Bookings: The users can have only two pending (unpaid) tickets at a time pending on his profile, regardless of the travel date with effect from 8th January 2010 for the entire journey starting date of the train till 5 days after.
These limits will be applied first on Tatkal and then on waiting list (if any) and then on General Quota, irrespective of the status of the reservations. The maximum number of tickets on the entire journey starting date is also limited to two per user-id.
These rules are applicable to all tickets booked from 7th January 2011. For users who have no past payment history with Indian Railways, the number of tickets booked 5 days prior to the journey date are not taken into account.
Inventory Management Controls: Key itineraries and premium services use dynamic thresholds for the percentage of inventory that may be placed on a hold provisionally to avoid artificial scarcity.
The concerns were countered by Railway Board Member (Commercial) Rajiv Sharma at a press briefing recently: “We have been very conservative with the convenience, as well as controls.
Our pilot data indicate misuse rates of less than 3%, which are workable and more than compensated by the benefits to legitimate travelers. The system includes machine learning aspects that progressively enhance abuse detection through developing trends.
Indian Railways Education Programmes and Passenger Uptake
Understandable to be such a big departure, Indian Railways has been carrying out several campaigns in this regard:
Station Assistance Booths: Information desks at key stations assist riders in familiarizing themselves with the new process with dedicated staff trained on transition concerns and common questions.
Visual Explainers: Simplified infographics in 12 regional languages were circulated across stations, trains and partner locations to spread the step by step the message.
SMS Guiding System – The PBID confirmation messages are pressed with adequate information on deadlines to make payment and options to payment, with the necessary reminders sent.
Community Workshops: Awareness drives in form of workshops are being organized by railway employees in rural India with the help of Gram Panchayats and local bodies to create awareness among travel aspirants about the new system.
Pradeep Yadav, the station master of Varanasi Junction, explains the adaptation process, “First week was tuff many questions were raised; as the time is passing, acceptance is increasing fast.
We’re seeing very strong adoption amongst younger passengers booking for their families and frequent travelers who appreciate the flexibility especially during payment gateway issues.”
As the new scheme is deployed across the country, railway officials stress that the old payment methods of instant payment remain in place for any passengers who would rather do things the old way.
Such dual-track implementation will ensure that the transition is smooth for both recalcitrants and enthusiasts at the same time becoming more more flexible in the process that would ensure the most loved railway of India remains even more accessible for its diverse people.
