The IRCTC website meant to book train tickets has had its own set of issues over the years. From outages, to timeout and repeated login issues, it hasn’t been the most user-friendly website for online bookings. But that seems to have changed now.
IRCTC’s revamped website has now gone live officially after being under beta testing for nearly a month. Apart from being clean, user friendly and smooth, the revamped website has a host of new features that is set to make booking of train tickets a lot simpler. One can even change font size of the website as per their viewing convenience.
The first and biggest difference in the new website is that one can check availability of tickets without having to log into an IRCTC account. The website opens to a window to check for train tickets while there are other tabs on the top for other services such as holidays, loyalty, meals, promotions, etc.
Homepage of the new IRCTC website
The new website allows users to check the train fare with break-up and availability of trains on other days. It also allows you to modify the journey details easily. An interesting new feature on the new website is a software that displays the chances of wait-listed train tickets getting confirmed. According to a Financial Express report, the new software uses historical data for two years to find trends and predict the chances of waitlisted tickets being confirmed.
There is also a feature called ‘Vikalp’ that allows passengers to choose accommodation in different trains in case a ticket is wait-listed.
Users can also request for an additional SMS and even change their boarding point. If you want to view any booking, there are now options to filter search based on booking date, journey date, completed journey and upcoming journey.
IRCTC also launched a mobile app called utsonmobile for users to be able to book unreserved tickets. The app can also be used for platform tickets. This app is essentially for short journeys such as local trains. Upon registering, a R Wallet is created for the user, which will have to be recharged in order to pay for the tickets.