Home / Technology / Indian Railways Reboots 40-Year-Old Booking System
Indian Railways Reboots 40-Year-Old Booking System
11 Aug
Summary
- New system supports 5x more bookings, significantly faster than old.
- Outdated system from 1986 processed only 32,000 bookings per minute.
- IRCTC beta website now has fewer steps and fewer CAPTCHAs.
Indian Railways has initiated a significant upgrade of its 40-year-old Passenger Reservation System (PRS). This modernization aims to boost booking capacity by five times and accelerate the IRCTC booking process, particularly for Tatkal tickets. The new cloud-based platform is designed to handle over 1.5 lakh bookings per minute, a substantial increase from the previous system's capacity of 32,000 bookings per minute.
The Passenger Reservation System, first implemented in 1986, has seen a surge in online bookings, with 89% of reserved tickets booked online by June 2026. The upgraded system introduces multilingual support, user-friendly features, and enhanced functionalities like seat selection and fare calendars. The IRCTC beta website, launched in July, now features fewer steps, eliminates unnecessary CAPTCHAs, and displays seat availability more clearly.
Early results from the new system's test launch on July 15, 2026, indicate a positive impact on Tatkal bookings, with a notable increase in bookings during the initial minutes of availability. The full rollout is planned to be gradual to minimize disruption. Additionally, the RailOne app, released in July 2025, has surpassed 3.5 crore downloads, offering features like AI-powered waitlist predictions with improved accuracy.
