Tatkal website can't keep up with demand, admit IRCTC officials

NEW DELHI: Try booking a tatkal train ticket online at 8am when booking counters and the web portal open simultaneously, and you will invariably find the website hanging frequently. Do not expect the situation to improve dramatically as IRCTC, the agency that runs the site, has plainly said it cannot meet the surging demand.
A GM-level IRCTC official said there were simply too many users, especially ahead of festivals and summer vacations.
"We have seen a peak of 13,000 hits per minute during the first 10-15 minutes from 8am. Our capacity is 1,500-2,000 successful transactions a minute. There isn't much we can do at the moment to meet the shortfall," the official said.
"We have ensured our system is as tout-free as possible. For faster usage, we have installed iridium servers, increased bandwidth and worked on ways to increase server capacity. But the demand keeps on rising," said an official. He added that CRIS, the company that set up the website, had been told about the problems.

IRCTC officials also said scaling up online bookings beyond a point too was also not desirable as that would deprive customers buying tickets from railway counters, especially in remote areas.
TOI spoke to a large number of railway portal users and the most common complaint was that the website had slowed considerably in the past couple of months. Satish Tripathi, an executive in a private company, said he gave up trying to buy a ticket to Lucknow after trying online. "I logged out as it was taking too long. The website hanged several times during the booking process," he said.
Users said clicking the 'book' icon, which appears during e-ticketing, does not guarantee a booking. "At times, even after completing the booking, the website at the end displays the message, 'service currently unavailable'. And, then one has to go through the process again," rued Rita Mishra, a user.
Passengers also complained that often the ticket would not be booked even after the online payment is made.
IRCTC has so far added 52 servers and plans to add 18 more. "But scaling up is not the only solution. If we were to increase our bandwidth to unlimited capacity, people in rural areas, who don't have net access will always be deprived of Tatkal (reservations made a day ahead) tickets since all will be booked within the first 15 minutes of counters opening at 8am," IRCTC chief Rakesh Kumar Tandon recently said in an interview to The Economic Times.
The IRCTC said it had taken strong action to stop touts. A total of 5,26,517 multiple user IDs and 44,187 IDs created by agents had been deactivated till date. "Single user registration on one e-mail ID with email verification has been implemented and individual users are permitted to book only two tickets between 8 and 10am. Mobile validation of users and single user registration on one mobile number has been implemented and mobile booking application has been launched for individual registered users of IRCTC. Single session per user ID check has been implemented. With this step, a user on irctc.co.in will be able to open his account for booking of e-tickets only once," said a senior IRCTC official on condition of anonymity.
However, a UP STF officer, who had busted a gang of railway touts in Lucknow, said the website could be tweaked. "The accused travel agents used a software to tweak the system and make their bookings at nine times the original speed," he said.