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E-Ticketing Services, Indian Railways: IRCTCComputer Application in Management AssignmentThis report aims to study the e-ticketing service provided by IRCTC and understand the IT implementation concepts associated with it.

By: Ankita Mishra Indrani Pradhan Monisha Sharma Chandani Chhabra Bhim Chhetri

Introduction

This report focuses on various aspects of Indian Railways and its Information Technology (IT) implementation in the area of Passenger Reservation System. The report first tries to understand the importance of IT initiatives in the context of Indian Railways and then moves on to the specific aspects of the Online Passenger Reservation and Ticketing System, implemented and supported by IRCTC.

Transportation Industries such as Railways operate in a dynamic and constantly changing environment. This requires a continuous update of information about current status and location of these assets. Information Resource, thus becomes, a critical managerial tool for confronting and tackling the business challenges on a real time basis. Transportation industries are also service industries and they thrive and flourish on Information - rich soil that provides them the vitally needed link to their customers and other major stakeholders. Railways being multi-location, multi-functional and multi-divisional organization provide an ideal backdrop for Computer Networks, which can allow sharing of resources across the Corporation and information with their customers. Unless, Railways also develop capabilities to harness information resources through the use of exploding information technology, as other industries are doing, its continued presence as a viable industry in future may become a question mark. On the contrary, if the railway system can exploit Information Technology to modernize their operations and practices to suit the needs of their customers, they can gain tremendous competitive advantage in the present and future business environment.

The Indian Railways (IR) carries about 5.5 lakh passengers in reserved accommodation every day. These tickets can be booked or cancelled for journeys commencing in any part of India and ending in any other part, with travel times as long as 72 hours and distances up to several thousand kilometers. In this report we will try and analyze how the introduction of IRCTC’s e-ticketing facility has revolutionized this process.

About IRCTC

IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation) was set by the Ministry of Railways in 1999 and has since played a huge role in transforming customer experience for buying a railway ticket. The lengthy queues for booking tickets or black marketing of tickets is no more the default way of buying tickets.

The following services are provided by IRCTC:

1. Catering: IRCTC is in charge of catering services on trains and railway stations across India. Depending on the distance covered by the train and average passenger load factor, the railways either equips trains with their own pantry cars or provides meals at select stations en route.

2. Online Ticketing: IRCTC is better known for changing the face of railway ticketing in India. It pioneered Internet-based rail ticket booking through its website, as well as from mobile phones via GPRS or SMS. Ticket cancellations or modifications can also be done online. In addition to E-tickets, IRCTC also offers I-tickets that are basically like regular tickets except that they are booked online and delivered by post.

3. Tourism: IRCTC also organizes budget and deluxe package tours for domestic and foreign tourists. A popular tourism package for budget tourists covering important tourist destination across India is Bharat Darshan. Luxury tourism packages are also available, that involve special luxury trains such as Palace on Wheels, Royal Orient Express etc.

IRCTC has emerged as the Biggest E-Commerce Website in India with revenue of around 250 Cr. every month. The total number of registered users on the website is around 9 million. Average Daily Booking of Tickets is more than 1,70,000 while the highest number of tickets Booked on a particular day was 2,26,929. Already IRCTC accounts for around 30% of all the passenger transactions done by the Indian railways.

Legacy Systems

The pilot project of PRS was launched on 15 November 1985, over Northern Railway with the installation of the Integrated Multiple Train Passenger Reservation System (IMPRESS), an online transaction processing system developed by the Indian Railways in association with Computer Maintenance Corporation (CMC) Ltd., at New Delhi.

The objective was to provide reserved accommodation on any train from any counter, preparation of train charts and accounting of the money collected. This application was subsequently implemented in 1987, at Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata and Secunderabad. With the addition of new locations and many redefinitions, the IMPRESS system fell short of growing expectations of the travelling public. Hence a new application software, i.e., Country Wide Network for Computerized Enhanced Reservation and Ticketing (CONCERT) was developed by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), New Delhi primarily using ‘C’ and also using ‘FORTRAN’. The application was first implemented at the Secunderabad PRS site in September 1994 and subsequently at the other four PRS sites.

Currently, the PRS servers are maintained at the five sites in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai and Secunderabad and operate in a distributed database process environment. Communication of all the terminals with their server was established using Railway/Department of Telecommunication (DOT) channel lines, fiber-optic cable/microwave channels, switches, modem, multiplexers etc. Theinter-networking of five PRS nodes was completed in April 1999. Interconnectivity is established between the five PRS centers over 2 mbps leased Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) lines. The system has the capability of issuing reserved tickets from anywhere to anywhere, in any train, date, class and between any pair of stations from any booking terminal of the PRS.

The main modules of the PRS are the Reservation module, the Cancellation and Modification Module, the Charting Module, the Accounting Module and the Database Module. The passengers’ request for reservation, cancellation

and modification of journey are handled by the system through requisition slips. Major outputs generated by the system are Reservation cum-journey tickets, cancellation/Modification tickets, Reservation Charts and Daily Terminal Cash Summary. The system is also capable of generating different types of Management Information System (MIS) Reports.

Present System Overview

The PRS system stores all the data and does all the bookings. The Internet system, developed by IRCTC, works as a bridge between you and PRS. It takes your query to the PRS, which checks for availability and does the booking, and displays the results to you. Both the PRS and the Internet system separately calculate the fare, which are then tallied. If they do not tally, the transaction is aborted. Otherwise, the Internet system displays the fare, including the courier charge (Rs 40 for sleeper class, Rs 60 for upper classes), to you. Your ticket gets booked (on the PRS) only once the payment gateway tells the Internet system that the payment has been successful. As a next step, the payment gateway and the PRS give the authorization codes to the Internet system. The PRS also gives it a PNR number. You are then presented a PNR number and an IRCTC transaction id, using which you can track the status of the delivery of your ticket.

Once the booking has been done, the PRS authorization code goes to the printing stations, which run both the PRS system and IRCTC system in different windows. An operator manually copies the PRS authorization from the IRCTC system and pastes it on to the PRS system, which then prints the ticket. An admin module helps distribute this workload and do reconciliations.

Hardware Platforms

The E-ticketing system deploys approximately 100 SUN

Microsystems(now owned by Oracle Corporation) Servers

The Servers use x86 based Xeon series Intel processors which are

basically 32 bit processors wherein each system is customized to

handle maximum processing while occupying min. space.

The servers are composed of test servers which are used to test

applications & syste protocols & policies before being put on main

serves, application servers which are used to do the information

processing for data relating to front end application & portal,

transaction server & gateways which are used to route payment from

credit cards to IRCTC account & provide a secure communication

passage, actual web servers handling the incoming & outgoing traffic

from & to the internet

The application and database management components run on four

separate four-way servers powered by Pentium III Xeon processors in

addition to four Pentium III processors that power the Web servers

The main servers including web servers, application servers,

transaction servers & gateways are housed in Delhi office with some

ticket processing & printing facilities also housed in Mumbai to cater

to the extensive local railway use there.

All the Data since the starting date in 2002 is stored using combination of

manual & automatic data backup policies for data analytics & refunding

cases.

Network Architecture

Delhi PRS

Mumbai PRS

Chennai PRS

kolkata PRS

Secunderabad PRS

2 MBPS (x2) Leased Line

2 MBPS (x2) Leased Line6

2 MBPS Leased Line

2 MBPS (X 2) Leased Line

2 MBPS Leased Line

2 MBPS (x2) Leased Line

Delhi

SecBad

Calcutta

Mumbai

Chennai

The System consists of 5 main PRS servers located in Delhi, Kolkata,

Secunderabad, Chennai and Mumbai which are used to do that actual

real time booking of the ticket according to the request. The e –

ticketing system sends a booking request to the nearest free PRS

server

The servers are connected via 2 Mbps leased lines i.e. the service

provider can have no other data on those lines, which provide enough

speed according to current data requirements with backups to

provide continuous service to the customers & the systems.

Backend for actual real time ticket booking is maintained by CRIS (Centre

for Railway Information Systems)

Software Systems

The system consists of a three tier architecture including the base

operating server system, a database handling application and a server

application to handle record & manage the incoming & outgoing data

from the internet & provide an application development platform for

the same.

The server service is provided through IIS (Internet Information

Server) 6.0 on Windows Server 2003 as the base operating system

Broadvision 7.1 AB Enterprise Edition developed by Broadvision Inc,

California on Windows 2000 Advanced Sever at Application Servers

Layer and serves the purpose of web application layer

Oracle 10g Enterprise Edition on Linux AS 4.0 Server with Oracle

RAC at Database Server Layer which serves to implement ERP for the

internal administrative system

Mail Gateway Protection with Trend/Micro Interscan Messaging

Security Suite (IMSS)

CA and Symantec Antivirus systems for servers and desktops to

prevent any compromise of the system though server & laptop and

they are regularly updated using update serves whose sole purpose is

to maintain up to date antivirus in each system

Security system in via billdesk payment gateway – The system build

on BroadVision uses 128-bit encryption to secure payment

transactions & doesn’t store any credit card details to prevent card

number theft

Tech Tree IT Systems work involves providing IRCTC with upgrades,

patches and bug supports for the BroadVision software installation.

The modules maintained are BroadVision One-to-One Enterprise,

Publishing Center, Command Center and Instant Publisher.

Applications

Booking & cancellation of ticket online – A simple, intuitive & secure

interface to book & cancel your tickets online wherein you can create

your account, put in your details & then use various payment options

to book your ticket. You can also cancel your ticket online & get the

money refunded to your bank account instantly.

Checking PNR status – Check the current status of your booking using

PNR reference, check if the charts have been prepared, your current

status in waiting list, etc.

Tatkal Booking of tickets

Getting a SBI Railway card

Mobile Booking – IRCTC plans to leverage on the existing E- ticketing

system by providing the existing web service through both fixed &

mobile phones. For cellphones, you can have both SMS and IVR

(voice) based booking services, while for the landlines, the service will

be over voice.

o Such complex systems which involve speech recognition are

quite popular abroad, but their deployments in India are still

fairly low. 

o The application runs on HP Proliant servers, on BroadVision's

One-to-One Enterprise e-commerce platform. A combination of

Tomcat and Apache running on Windows is used to provide the

web services to the operators

o The concerned operators have to build their own application for

making the service available to their customers. Many including

Hutch, Airtel, Idea & Reliance have already joined the fray.

The Mobile booking facility is currently available only in the NCR region;

also the delivery is restricted to the NCR as a pilot project. Eventually the

service would be moved nationally.

SMS booking – This is a yet to be launched service by IRCTC. In this service

you can book your ticket with

two short SMSs. It is going to be

introduced soon. Given below is a

sample SMS transaction.

o

The SMS conversation sequence between the user and the IRCTC

First SMS by user: PLAN 

Example: PLAN Amishra Amishra123 1081 CSTM PUNE 10/05/2005 SL LIST2.

Reply from IRCTC: Ticket fare:Rs 161.0, Availability status:AVAILABLE 0228, SMS

TXN ID:501. Pls send sms BOOKPAY SMSTXN ID ICICIBANK MSHOPNAME

to 7245 to book ticket.

Note : SMS transaction ID identifies a particular SMS instruction to the relevant transaction in the IRCTC

database

Electronic Reservation Slip and Status Enquiry

System

IRCTCs e-Ticketing Service Electronic Reservation Slip

Manpower Deployed

The E – ticketing system is maintained jointly by IRCTC & Broadvision

The total manpower deployed in E – ticketing is approximately 200

o 40-50 core personnel involved in server maintenance & upkeep

o A team of approx 90-100 people involved in developing front end

applications & web portal

o A team of 60 people in call center for general enquiry &

booking.

The core team of E - ticketing is headed by Mr. Sanjay Aggarwal

(General Manager, Operation). He is assisted by 5-6 Managers

followed by general staff.

The core Broadvision team consists of a Team Leader and 9-10 other

database & networking professionals.

Budget for E – Ticketing System

The overall cost in running the e-ticketing system including hardware cost,

software licenses, human resources, etc. excluding the cost of land on which

data center is present is approximately 100 crore in 2008-09

The hardware installed alone is worth around 60-70 crore.

Around 3889 crore of revenue was generated from sale of tickets for the

year 2008-09

Awards and Recognition

Awarded with National Tourism Award of Excellence by Ministry

of Tourism, Govt. of India

 Awarded the National Award for E-Governance, 2007-08 jointly

by Department of IT, Govt. of India  and Govt. of Haryana

 Awarded the Genius of the Web Award 2007 for Best E-Gov PSU

Site by CNBC

 IRCTC Tourism Unit of West Zone has been awarded the Winner for

the Category Best Value Leisure Product in Travel and Tourism

Fair of India i.e. TTF & OTM 2008 held in Mumbai from 9th to 11th

February 2008

National award for E-Governance Best Citizen Centric

Application for the year 2007-08.

 IRCTC Tourism Unit has been awarded the Winner for the Category

Most Innovative Product in Travel and Tourism Fair of India i.e.

TTF & OTM 2007 held in Mumbai from 10th to 12th  February 2007

 CSI-Nihilent E-Governance award for Best E-Governance Project in

2007

ICICI bank Retail Excellence Award in 2005

 Path Breaker Award from Dataquest in 2004

Path Breaker Award from Dataquest in 2003

Future Challenges

While the number of customers and transactions will definitely go up

because of the monopoly factor, IRCTC has outlined a number of plans,

which prove that the company doesn’t believe in resting on its laurels. Plans

are on the anvil to cater to the corporate sector, wherein companies can

sign up on the site and book tickets for employees through a single account.

Besides, IRCTC intends to expand its travel portal to leverage BroadVision’s

advanced personalization capabilities to the fullest extent. In the next

phase, IRCTC’s travel portal will add other tourism and reservation touch-

points and expand ticket delivery services to all major cities in India.

Their target is to provide Internet booking and delivery service to a total of

100 cities and focus on improving facilities with value-added services.

IRCTC has realized that payment through mobile is a hot trend and picking

up fast and is now looking at taking this route—soon you should be able to

book tickets from your mobile itself.

Besides mobile payment Credit cards, net banking, pre paid schemes are

going to be next big thing.

Catering to businesses (B2B) is also going to be another big area of focus

for IRCTC. Opening more outlets and kiosks for people not too tech savvy

people is also going to be on the agenda as the idea has been a success in

the past.

Analysis from the existing data shows that usage of the facilities in the

Tier2, Tier3 cities are growing at a faster rate than metro cities. So, IRCTC

has to improve their volumes in metro and utilize the fast growth rate in

Tier2, Tier3 cities.

As far as the service goes IRCTC is trying to make the facility available 24

hrs and the ticket disbursement on a real time basis so that the tickets

reach people on time. Also IRCTC has to design a new system to handle the

peak capacity of 3 lakh tickets per day. IRCTC is planning to float a tender

for new contract.