Premium Tatkal Quota Through PRS Booking Counters

PR. No. 152 

Date: 24th June, 2016

Premium Tatkal Quota Through PRS Booking Counters

Railway Board has now extended the booking facility of premium tatkal quota through Passenger Reservation System (PRS) booking counters across Indian Railways. Earlier, this Premium Tatkal quota booking was available only through online (IRCTC Internet Booking). This facility commences with effect from 25th June, 2016. At present around 25 trains are having the facility of premium tatkal quota on South Central Railway for 2AC, 3AC and Sleeper class coaches.

Source:South Central Railway

Railways Hikes Special Trains Fares by 35 Percent

MADURAI: Passengers travelling in special trains be prepared to burn a hole in your pocket. You cannot enjoy the luxury of spending the same amount you dole out for a Superfast or Express train to travel in a special train.

The Indian Railways has silently hiked the fare for special train, while it used to be on par with the fares of Superfast and Express trains till recently. Official sources said the ticket fares of special trains have been increased up to 35 per cent over and above the normal train charges. The revised fare structure for all special trains, they say, was introduced to boost the passenger earnings.

Quoting a recent circular issued by the railway board, a senior official said the hike in the ticket fare for special trains ranges between 30 and 35 per cent compared to the regular trains. A second class (sleeper) ticket in a special train operated between Madurai and Chennai costs an average of `375 as against `285 in a regular train. As regards third AC and second AC, the fares have seen a rise of `215 and `280, respectively.

Catering to the demand of the passengers, especially during the festivals and summer holidays, the Southern Railway operates around 200 special trains a year from Chennai to southern districts.

The unannounced fare hike in special trains has not gone well with the passenger associations. Edward Jeni, secretary of the Kanyakumari District Railway Users’ Association, says, “Cashing in on the patronage borne out of huge demand, the railway administration is fleecing the passengers. Special trains are no special. It is unfair.”

Source:http://www.newindianexpress.com/states/tamil_nadu/Railways-Hikes-Special-Trains-Fares-by-35-Percent/2016/03/06/article3312451.ece

Imagine buying something for Rs5,000 and then being given a bill of Rs12,000, all because of a small asterisk which says 'fares may increase at the time of booking'.

Thane resident Shyam Nair was subject to what he called a very cruel joke when he got a bill of Rs11,904 after he booked two premium tatkal tickets on the 16345 Kurla-Thiruvananthapuram Netravati Express on Friday morning. The ticket rate being flashed on the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) website at the time of booking was Rs2,145.

Speaking to dna, Nair said, "Time is such an important factor when you are booking on the IRCTC website, even a second lost is a ticket lost. I started my booking session with the price of the ticket mentioned as Rs2,145.

After I booked two tickets under the premium tatkal quota, I got an alert from my SBI account, which showed that Rs11,904 had been debited. The fare had increased to Rs5,930. I paid Rs11,860 for the two tickets, with Rs44 as service charge."

What has galled Nair is the fact that on several travel portals a flight ticket between Mumbai and Trivandrum was going at around Rs7,000. "I could have paid a bit more and got two flight tickets, saving almost a day of travelling. It is appalling that the railways calls itself a public utility and works at such abysmal levels of transparency," fumed Nair.

The bad news for commuters is that according to IRCTC there is nothing much that can be done to rectify such a situation when it comes to premium tatkal tickets. Explaining the problem, Sunil Kumar, group general manager, (information technology) IRCTC, said, "There is something called the inquiry time and the booking time. The problem is that in premium tatkal, as each class on a train will have just around 10-15 premium tatkal tickets that can be booked from computers nationwide, the booking is so quick that price changes between inquiry time and booking time. In a matter of less than a minute, a premium tatkal ticket will reach the upper limit (three times the base fare). It is possible that in this case, the same thing happened."

According to Kumar, the small number of premium tatkal tickets available per class per train and the quick speed of the transactions mean displaying the booking time fare — the one the commuter actually pays — is technically impossible.

Passenger associations are unwilling to take it lying down, with the All-Thane Malayalee Association (ATMA) planning to approach railway authorities about what it called railway-approved fraud. "It is high time commuters start protesting. The commuter books thinking s/he is paying the base fare but ends up paying the premium fare that railway calculates in some manner only it knows. This is unacceptable," said Sashikumar Nair of the ATMA.

Source :DNA

Indian Railways is trying out a dynamic fare pricing model for premium Tatkal tickets

At 4.53 p.m. on December 13, a second AC premium Tatkal ticket from Mumbai to Delhi by Rajdhani Express for December 14 cost ₹6,692.47, while the normal Tatkal fare was ₹3,225. Air fares for the same day ranged between ₹6,490 and ₹7,016.

Buoyed by dynamic pricing of tickets on premium trains, the Indian Railways recently extended the concept to the Tatkal scheme, which earned ₹1,298 crore last fiscal. From October 1, fifty per cent of the existing Tatkal quota is being sold under the dynamic fare scheme.

Of about 12.95 lakh berths and seats made available each day by the Indian Railways, about 2.24 lakh seats and berths are available under Tatkal. Premium Tatkal would account for half of that. Dynamic fares kick in only after 50 per cent of the total Tatkal tickets quota is sold.

Rail passengers, while welcoming the dynamic fare pricing model for premium Tatkal tickets, have called for fine-tuning the pricing model, besides better on-train services and punctual operations.

Dheeraj Sanghi, Professor of Computer Science, IIT Kanpur, says, “About 12 hours before the train departs, the price should drop if the train is not close to full.”

Make it transparent

Delhi-based communications professional Shashanka Nanda thinks the fare structure in Indian Railways should be easy to understand for the passenger.

“The whole concept of dynamic pricing has reduced transparency in railway fares. With so many quotas and formulae, the passenger has no idea what the fare will be until the last moment. Fare calculation logic should be made public so that passengers can plan their journey better.”

Giriraj Bissa, Director, erail.in (an information portal on Indian Railways), says, “Dynamic pricing is not a viable proposition. Instead, the Railways can convert all Duronto and Sampark Kranti trains as Tatkal trains. They need more coaches to fulfil demand, which is mostly on weekends and festivals.”

“They also need to fine-tune quota allocation logic in their passenger reservation system (PRS) as after chart preparation and in the running train too, one observes lots of berths going empty for a section of the journey whereas PRS shows huge waiting lists before chart preparation,” he adds.

The Railways, on the other hand, wants to pocket the premium. Passengers are willing to pay middlemen to get confirmed reservations at the last minute. Says DP Pande, Member, Traffic Railway Board, “It is a facility we have extended to travellers who are willing to pay the premium to obtain confirmed bookings at the last moment.”

Some passengers question the quantum of premium charged. Hyderabad-based dentist Vrijilesh Rai says, “It should not be extremely high so as to kill the proverbial goose. And since the passengers are being charged several-fold, top-notch catering and punctuality is necessary, it goes without saying.”

As bookings can be done only through the internet, some passengers also feel that this facility should be extended over the booking counters. Sridhar Joshi, a Chennai-based insurance professional, says, “Something needs to be worked out to have these tickets booked at the PRS counters as well.”

Finally, refund is one issue where travellers want at least a part of their money back in various situations.

Samit Roychoudhury, a Kolkata-based cartographer, feels that if the train is cancelled, there should be a penalty payable to the passenger.

“Allow cancellations with a rider. Refund, if any, will be made after charting.” After charting, if the train remains full, Indian Railways can consider refunding at least the base non-Tatkal fare for the equivalent class. If there are vacancies after charting, no refund to anyone. Fares must be refunded to passengers in case the train is late,” says Joshi.

How the pricing is done

Dynamic fare pricing takes into account the actual demand for a service and is a function of percentage of seats booked [seats booked (in buckets of 10) divided by seats available] vis-à-vis the elapsed advance reservation period (ARP). Demand changes in multiples of 10 as buckets get filled. The variation of actual demand over normal demand (100/number of days in the ARP) gives the dynamic factor which is added to the base price (normal fare + Tatkal charges). Premium basic fare is determined by adding the base price with base price multiplied by dynamic factor per cent.

For instance, consider a train with four third-AC coaches having a capacity of 64 berths per coach, totalling 256 berths.

For an ARP of five days, the normal demand would be 20 per cent. If 234 berths have been booked on the third day, the system would calculate it to be 230 (as per bucket size 10).

The actual demand for the third day works out to 29.94791667 and the dynamic factor or variation of actual demand over normal demand is 49.74.

For a base price of ₹2,116, (normal fare of ₹1,751 +Tatkal charges of ₹365), the premium basic price is ₹2,116 *(1+0.4974) = ₹3,168.50.

Source Business Line

Tatkal Booking - There still persists problems in Tatkal reservations along with much scope for misuse and manipulation by travel agents/touts

The Tatkal scheme has been thoroughly revised and there are adequate safeguards to ensure that Tatkal tickets are available to bonafide passengers. The following measures have been taken to reduce the scope for its misuse by unscrupulous elements:

(i) Agents have been restricted from booking Tatkal tickets at the counters between 1000 hours and 1200 hours. 

(ii) For Tatkal tickets the proof of identity is captured in the system and printed in the charts. Carrying the same original proof of identity as indicated on the ticket has been made compulsory for one of the passengers while undertaking journey on Tatkal tickets. This measure has substantially reduced the scope for transfer of tickets.

With a view to meeting the rush during the designated opening hours, the Next Generation e-ticketing (NGeT) has been launched for improving accessibility and enhancing the overall experience of e-ticketing. NGeT has the capacity to book 7,200 tickets per minute and support 1,20,000 concurrent users at any point of time.

Preventive checks are conducted in and around reservation offices and also in trains to check the misuse of the reservation facility by unscrupulous elements.

The above information was submitted as a written reply by the Minister of Railways to a question in Parliament.

IRCTC charging higher fares in the name of premium Tatkal Tickets

A big question raised in Parliament by a Hon'ble member about the charging of Premium Tatkal tickets, the concerned Minister has replied to this question is given below for your information...

In order to improve the earnings from passenger services, w.e.f. 01.10.2014, in some of the selected trains by Zonal Railways which are most in demand, 50% of the existing accommodation under Tatkal Quota has been earmarked as Premium Tatkal Quota and is being booked on dynamic pricing.

This is a distance-slab based fare scheme where the fare increases by 20% after each slab of 10% berths are sold subject to a cap (maximum fare chargeable). 

Tatkal is a facility over and above the normal booking of reserved seats/berths.

A great shock for the Railway employees from the railway board, Tatkal Reservation will not be available on Pass-PTOs.

New Delhi, the hopes of around 13 lakh railway employees across the country for Tatkal reservation facility on PTOs has been dashed. The Railway board has rejected this proposal. 

For Tatkal Reservations, the railway employees not only should stand in long queues, but also should pay the complete fares. However, the right to travel on Pass and PTOs have been undone. The railway union recommends to grant back the railway privileges to the senior citizens and also is requesting for Tatkal Reservation facilities using Pass – PTOs for railway employees. 

This proposal was placed in the Permanent Negotiation Machinery (PNM) meeting held on 19-20 December between the National Federation of the Indian Railway Union and the Railway board. It was stated on the behalf of the federation that, Tatkal facilities should be extended for Passes and PTOs. The Tatkal charges will be paid by the Railway employees and the remaining charges will be adjusted against the Pass-PTOs. 

This proposal of the NFIR has been discarded by the Railway board. It was stated on behalf of the Railway board officers present in the PNM that this issue was reviewed and was found not worthy to be actioned. In the PNM meeting 121 issues were discussed, in which decision for 92 issues are pending and the files related to other 29 files have been closed. 

Here we would like to clearly state that the Group ‘C’ and Group ‘D’ railway employees receive 3 sets of passes and 4 sets of PTOs every year. Using this, the railway employees can travel on any train to any part of the country. Almost every railway employee can travel in Air Conditioned Railway compartments. 

The lower level employees are permitted to travel in Ac-3, Mid-Level Executives AC-2 and the High-Level Officers are permitted to travel in AC-1. Apart from this, all the family members can travel free of cost along with the railway employee. The validity of Pass-PTOs in railways is fixed for four months. On obtaining a Pass-PTO, it is a must for the employee to travel within a period of 4 months. Apart from this, the railway employees are provisioned with various other types of railway passes. 

One of the major of these is School Passes. School passes are issued to the children of Railway employees for travelling to and fro to school. Apart from this, railway employees who stay at a distance from their work location are given daily passes to travel to and fro to between their work and home locations. 

Railway passes play a vital role in the lives of Railway employees, and in as such, the rejection to provide Tatkal privileges on Railway Passes is clearly a great blow to the railway pass holders. 

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Tatkal Tickets on 80 Popular trains are costlier from Oct 1.

The Railways have made half of the Tatkal tickets on 80 most popular trains costlier with effect from October 1. This triggered a backlash from users who have complained that efforts should instead have been made to curb touts who manage to corner most of these tickets.

Officials admitted that with the onset of the festival season, the tickets earmarked for the “dynamic pricing scheme’’ will be bought immediately. But most rail users including those on the Google Circles did not take kindly to this explanation.

“The move by the Railways to shift 50 per cent of Taktal quota to Premier Tatkal quota needs to be withdrawn. Why force a passenger to pay dynamic fare price, whose working and pricing structure is opaque and susceptible to be manipulated?” commented Mahendra Nahata.

But Tensing Rodrigues advised caution. “It is too early to criticise Premium Tatkal. Let us see how it works, because in principle it makes a lot of sense. Just to discard it because it means paying more is silly. Let us give this sort of populist mentality a rest; it will not take us anywhere,” he observed.

A railway official denied there was any intention to inconvenience passengers. But the Railways cannot increase the number of trains because of line capacity limitations.

Source : The Hindu.