Making the Tatkal System Smoother: What Can IRCTC Do?

Introduction

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) serves millions of passengers daily through its Tatkal system, which allows travellers to book train tickets at short notice. However, the current system faces numerous challenges, such as high traffic during peak hours, server congestion, payment failures, and an overall cumbersome booking process. As the demand for convenient and efficient rail travel continues to grow, it is crucial to address these issues and improve the Tatkal system for a better user experience.

Improving the Tatkal system not only enhances customer satisfaction but also has the potential to boost revenue for IRCTC. With an efficient and user-friendly platform, more passengers will be encouraged to utilize the Tatkal service, leading to better utilization of available seats and resources. Additionally, an improved Tatkal system can contribute to the overall growth of the Indian Railways by attracting more travellers, especially semi-business travellers who may have previously opted for alternative modes of transportation.

In the following sections, we will explore experimental suggestions that IRCTC can implement to enhance the Tatkal system, focusing on aspects like booking process optimization, asynchronous berth allocation, and streamlined payment methods. By adopting these innovative approaches, IRCTC can elevate the Tatkal experience for its users, ensuring a smoother and more enjoyable journey.

Time-Slotted Tatkal Bookings

One of the most significant issues that users face when booking Tatkal tickets is the unresponsiveness and random failures that occur due to the peak, bursty load on the system. This problem arises when a large number of users try to book tickets simultaneously, causing the system to become overwhelmed and unresponsive.

To address this issue, a time-slotted Tatkal booking system can be implemented. This system would involve dividing the 16 railway zones into groups of 4, with each pair consisting of two zones that are geographically close or have similar booking patterns. This pairing will help to distribute the load more evenly across the system.

Next, allocating 15-minute booking slots for each group will reduce the peak by 4 times. By assigning specific time slots to each pair, users will be able to book tickets for their respective zones without competing with the entire user base at once. This will result in a more efficient and reliable booking process.

Streamlining Payment Processing

One of the most frustrating aspects of the Tatkal booking process is the frequent occurrence of payment failures and delays, especially during rush hours. These issues not only result in a negative user experience but also contribute to the loss of revenue for IRCTC.

One such improvement could be to eliminate the slow and often cumbersome redirection and waiting for the OTP (One-Time Password) by adopting alternative payment methods like Simpl, PayTM Postpaid, or digital wallets. These options make it a single-click checkout.

IRCTC eWallets will see more adoption by removing the OTP requirement during checkout and integrating FIDO passkeys instead. FIDO passkeys offer a faster and equally secure authentication method compared to OTPs, enabling users to complete transactions more efficiently.

Asynchronous Berth Allocation

Optimizing the berth allocation process is crucial for improving the Tatkal booking experience on the IRCTC platform. Although berth allocation may not directly cause server congestion, it can increase latency and consume valuable CPU cycles, affecting the overall performance of the system.

Implementing a durable in-memory database (DB) for booking with quotas, and performing berth allocation asynchronously can help mitigate these issues. By decoupling the allocation process from the user-facing booking interface, IRCTC can efficiently reduce the peak resources necessary and reduce latency.

In this approach, the in-memory DB is used to handle the initial booking process, allowing users to secure a ticket within their desired quota quickly. The actual berth allocation is then performed asynchronously, rolling up the data to the main database at a later time.

By reducing latency and optimizing CPU usage, the booking process becomes faster and more responsive for users. Additionally, this approach enables IRCTC to better handle higher concurrency and maintain a consistent level of service quality.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we have suggested various enhancements to the Tatkal system that can substantially improve the overall user experience on the IRCTC platform. These improvements would increase consistency and enable IRCTC to sell more tickets, thereby boosting revenue.