Passengers Hail Railways Move To Cut Advance Ticket Booking Time

Passengers said 120 days was too long for planning a trip as the situation keeps changing. Reports ETV Bharat's Chanchal Mukherjee

New Delhi: Welcoming the Railways decision to reduce the time limit for advance reservation for trains, the passengers said it is a positive move for the them, in a bid to provide better services.

Shrikant Sharma, a passenger, told ETV Bharat, "It is a positive move for passengers. I am hopeful that we will now get more confirmed tickets in the two months booking period. In the 120 days period of booking, several people prefer to book tickets in advance but they don't turn up at the last moment.”

"Now we can book tickets 60 days in advance that will help us to plan our journey properly and it will reduce the chance of cancelling the ticket,” Sharma said.

Echoing similar sentiments, another passenger, Mukesh Sharma said, "It was very difficult for people to plan their journey four months in advance. It was seen several times that people booked their tickets in advance but at the last moment they had to cancel reservations for various reasons. Now, it will reduce those issues.”

Rahish Kashyap, a passenger, said, "Four months was too long for planning a trip because the situation keeps changing due to various reasons in a family whether it is job, study or social reasons. Two months is enough to plan a journey in the proper way.”

Train reservation period History:

Railway advance reservation period has undergone changes from time to time. Advance Reservation Period has varied from 30 days to 120 days. Based on the experience of various periods, 60 days Advance Reservation Period has been observed as the optimal period from passenger point of view.

Period Advance Reservations:

April, 1981 to January, 1985 120 days, February 1, 1985 to August 31, 1988 90 days, September 1, 1988 to September 30, 1993 60 days, October 1, 1993 to June 30, 1995 45 days, September 1, 1995 to January 31, 1998 30 days, February 1, 1998 to February 28, 2007 60 days, March 1, 2007 to July 14, 2007 90 days, July 15, 2007 to January 31, 2008 60 days, February 1, 2008 to March 9, 2012 90 days, March 10, 2012 to April 30, 2013 120 days, May 1, 2013 to March 31, 2015 60 days, and April 1, 2015 to October 31, 2024 120 days.

Benefits of 60 days reservation period:

As 120 days was too long for planning, resulting in high cancellations and wastage of seats/ berths because of passengers not turning up for journeys. Currently, there is about 21 per cent cancellation and four–five per cent passengers do not turn up.

Issues with No-show:

In many cases, it is seen that passengers do not cancel their tickets and do not turn up for journeys. And this leads to frauds such as impersonation and taking money illegally. Now, this can be prevented. With longer periods, there was a greater chance of some people blocking the tickets. Shorter periods will encourage more tickets by genuine passengers. There is no impact on General class tickets as they are purchased just before the journey.

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