Advanced Travel Experience: Indian Railways Train Charts To Be 8 Hours Before Departure; Waitlisted Passengers To Make Better Predictions

Indian Railways train charts preparation will be eight hours before a train's departure. Ticketing and reservation processes will also be advanced. The Railway Ministry has increased the maximum waiting list quota for AC classes from 25% to 60% of the coach capacity. Waitlisted passengers will be able to predict due to these advancements.

In addition to the early chart preparation, the Railways will roll out a Modern Passenger Reservation System (PRS) by December 2025. The project is being implemented by the Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS).

One more advancement will improve access to real-time booking information for millions of passengers. Over 1.5 lakh ticket bookings per minute will be operational. The new PRS will handle this five-fold increase from the current capacity of 32,000 tickets per minute.

Meanwhile, an Aadhaar linkage mandate for Tatkal train bookings will also come into effect from July 1. Passengers reserving tickets under the Tatkal quota will be required to provide Aadhaar details during the booking process. FY26 is expected to see railways carrying around 7.57 billion passengers, compared to 7.27 billion in FY25.

The Indian Railways will increase second-class travel fares by half a paisa per kilometre beyond 500 km starting July. For mail express trains, the increase translates to 1 paisa per km, while air-conditioned (AC) classes will see a 2 paisa per km rise. However, suburban fares and monthly season tickets will remain unchanged.