On Railways decision to shrink advance booking period

People throng the Visakhapatnam Railway station to get a foothold in the train, on January 17.
| Photo Credit: V. RAJU

The story so far: One could book railway tickets four months in advance for long journeys. Now passengers will only be able to book tickets on Indian Railways two months in advance, a circular released by the Railway Board earlier this month stated.

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When will the Advance Reservation Period (ARP) be effective?

The circular states that the new ARP rules will kick in from November 1, 2024 onwards, and that the booking window for passengers to reserve their tickets will open 60 days in advance (excluding the actual day of journey). However, if a passenger has booked any tickets up to October 31 (under the earlier 120-day period rule), all those bookings will remain intact, and the passenger also has the facility to cancel those tickets at will.

By shortening the reservation period to 60 days, the Railways has reversed its 16-year old policy of reserving tickets 120 days in advance, which had kicked in from May 1, 2008. Before this, from 1995 to 2007, the booking window was restricted to 60 days. Interestingly, between 1988 to 1993, Railways had experimented with shortening the advance booking window to as less as only 45 days. Before this, once between 1981 to 1985, the Railways had opened the ARP for a 90-day window.

Why was such a decision taken?

Railways officials observed that 120 days was too long a period for planning journeys, and that it led to a high amount of ticket cancellations. “Currently, up to 21% passengers who book their tickets end up cancelling them,” a senior official stated. While allotting seats/berths, officials also observed that there was a wastage of seats/berths because of passengers who would not turn up for journeys and at the same time would not bother to cancel their tickets. “4% to 5% passengers don’t turn up (which is considered as no show),” the official further said. “Another trend Railways noticed is that between 88% to 90% rail reservations occur in the period of 60 days, hence it was thought prudent to reduce the ARP,” another senior official told The Hindu.

Do longer booking windows increase frauds?

The rationale given by the officials to reduce ARP is that when passengers do not cancel their tickets and do not turn up for journeys, it opens up possibilities for fraud. “We observed frauds such as impersonation, railway officials taking money illegally to allot empty berths etc. With shortening reservation period this could be prevented,” the official said.

Secondly, there is an immense challenge of curtailing touts that operate on the railway network. “When reservation periods are longer, there is a greater chance that touts end up blocking a substantial tranche of tickets. Shortening the period of ARP will encourage purchase of more tickets by genuine passengers,” the official added.

Parallelly, Railway officials state that the decision to either reduce or increase the ARP window is open for debate. “There are two opposing camps that debate how to fix the ARP window. There is one camp in the Ministry that believes in opening up advance reservation for the entire year, and that passengers should be allowed to book and cancel tickets round the year during the period of 365 days. This camp believes that opening up the reservation window year-long will fetch railways revenues in advance. However this facility is currently only available for foreign tourists, who avail of a certain quota to plan their train journeys across India,” the official added.

Which groups of passengers are exempt from ARP rule?

Apart from foreign tourists, the Union Railway Ministry had stated that there is no impact on General class tickets as they are purchased just before the journey. It has also stated that for certain trains like Taj Express and Gomti Express it was noticed that tickets are booked almost immediately by passengers who wish to travel in these sitting trains. “They are exempt from ARP rule as passengers who wish to travel in these trains book tickets almost immediately a day or two in advance,” the first official added.