Good news for Rajdhani Express, Shatabdi Express travellers! Book tickets even after chart preparation soon

Do you travel in Indian Railways premier trains like Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express? If yes, then in the next 20 days, you will be able to see the vacant berths and that is even after charts have been prepared! And yes, that means you can even book the seat online using IRCTC website. This is courtesy Indian Railways, on Wednesday,  launching a new facility for Public Viewing of Train Charts and Vacant Berths to enhance travel experience and bring greater transparency for passengers.

Girish Pillai, Member Traffic, Railway Board said on Wednesday that the move will enable a passenger to see which berth is available. He added in 20 days all Rajdhani Express and Shatabdi Express trains tickets can be booked even after second charts are prepared - these are released 30 minutes before the departure of the train.

Therefore, if you have failed to get a confirmed ticket in any of these Indian Railways trains, then you can track the berth availability in real-time and book the empty berths available at that time.

The information about occupancy in trains as per Passenger Reservation Charts will now be available for public view on the internet through IRCTC website irctc.co.in.

"This will facilitate the prospective passengers in getting the information of the vacant berths available in the train after chart preparation. Complete information of vacant berths from train source as well as intermediate locations will be available to the user. A prospective customer can use the information for online booking of vacant berths or through TTE as per business rules. This feature is available on the web as well as mobile version," Indian Railways had said.

This will also enable the waitlisted/ticketless passengers onboard a train to get confirmed berth as they now don't need to search for the Ticket collector in the moving train.

This new feature in the ticketing system is a dynamic system which will keep upgrading itself as the train proceeds for the destination and make it more transparent as passengers can see the real-time availability of berths.

The user-friendly interface will give a graphical representation of the train coaches and berth-wise accommodation status on the IRCTC website.

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"The system displays coach layout of 9 classes used in the reserved trains of Indian Railways and more than 120 different coach layouts have been incorporated. This feature displays class wise and coach wise full vacant berth availability information as per the ‘First Chart’ of the train. ‘First Chart’ is prepared four hours in advance to train departure. If the ‘Second Chart’ is also prepared, then the option to view the details of vacant berth available at the time of ‘Second Chart’ will also be displayed. The ‘Second Chart’ is prepared about 30 minutes prior to the departure of the train, to accommodate the information of current reservations and cancellations done after ‘First Chart’. Both the charts will get updated for every charting location as the train heads towards its destination," said the Indian Railways.