Book Train Ticket without IRCTC registration on Phone Via IVRS on 139

In view of improving service railway has introduce a new method of booking ticket using IVRS . here customer need not to have techi friendly neither he needs any IRCTC registration or username.
But this service will not available between  8am -12pm and 11:30pm to 12:30am .This service will be assisted by dedicated customer care agent

The customer can book rail tickets on a Call using the Credit/ Debit Card. The process of booking is as follows
Steps
1) The customer calls our 24*7 helpline number-139
2) IVR offers various service options
3) Customer presses menu button 5 on the phone
4) The call is directed towards an agent
5) The agent retrieves the passenger and journey details information.
6) Post details confirmation, the agent transfers the call to PCIDSS certified IVR wherein the
 customer punches in the Credit/ Debit Card number, CVV Number, Expiry Date and OTP.
On successful transaction, the agent confirms the booked ticket information to the customer.
Ticket is delivered on customer’s E-mail ID.

New Train Enquiry site Launched http://enquiry.indianrail.gov.in/

Now Indian Railway has started its new Train Enquiry site that is http://enquiry.indianrail.gov.in..This website is pretty much faster than existing website http://www.trainenquiry.com with  addition of new facilities like Cancelled trains on the new site, re – scheduled trains diverted trains from being conveyed. Officials say CRIS(Centre for Railway Information Systems)

is currently running a trial of this site. In the coming days it will be on the improve.I don’t understand why government is investing so much on multiple site when already there is existing train enquiry system is there. Recently Govt. has closed much await project of Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation (SIMRAN) which can be very much effective

The biggest USP of this website is that passengers get details. To know the status of the train running on Route option of putting the name or number. User can enter the source and destination and get the list of train and on click of the train it will give status of Train. Particular Train information is also displayed by entering Train name of Train Number

The second option is Station. Name of Station type All trains arrive at the station within two hours will be displayed. If you wish to travel in the particular  train, click on that train running status of the train will also be available. The third option is to train between stations, with which this information can be obtained so that train service between the two stations are in 24 hours. Re – schedule and diverted trains running from Route options are given for information.

Apart from  express and superfast trains this site also tell information about  passengers Trains, which inculde commuters who travel by shuttle trains . It will also tell you status of the shuttle trains. It will tell you number of coaches in shuttle so that the passenger can stand on the platform according to their coach position. This particular information is not available on any existing website. 

From 1 July 2013 Book Indian Railways Ticket by SMS/USSD

Soon  Train passengers will be able to use their mobile phones to book tickets using SMS that is  text-messaging-based facility or a menu-based dialling service(USSD) from July 1. This can be used with even simple feature phones to smartphones. There is no need for an internet connection and customers will not have to pay any data charges.

The IRCTC said that it has provided a simple user-guided menu to book tickets, search stations and check the availability of berths.”A dedicated telephone number will soon be provided to carry out the transactions,”
For the SMS-based ticket service, customers need to register with their banks to generate Mobile Money Identifier (MMID), a seven-digit random number. For the menu-based USSD system, there is no need to register with the bank and payment can be authorized through a mobile wallet.

Six berths or seats can be booked in a single transaction through the new systems.SMS charge for booking will be Rs 3. Apart from this there will be gateway charge of Rs 5 upto ticket of Rs 5000 and for ticket above Rs 5000 there will be charge for Rs 10

Procedure for Booking

1. SMS-based booking

* Registered IRCTC users can use this service. You also need to register your mobile number with IRCTC as well as your bank, which provides Mobile Money Identifier (MMID) and one-time password (OTP)

* Send SMS to designated number in following format: BOOK

* You receive a transaction ID

* Make payment with an SMS to designated number in the following format

PAY

2) USSD (menu-based dialling)

* Dial designated number, select ‘book tickets’ option, select ‘reservation’ (user is prompted to enter his IRCTC user ID once only), enter details (station, train no., date, etc)

* Enter mPIN for authorizing payment through mobile wallet

* Booking confirmation SMS is sent by IRCTC

Book your Meal of your choice on Indian Railways Online using www.travelkhana.com

People  who travel offen  in long-distance passenger trains and fed up with train pantry food service and its menu here is option which will have option to book your food of your  form list of menu you prefer. If you’ want that  the convenience of home delivery food then here is the solution provided by http://www.travelkhana.com
here user can  place orders by phone, or their website. The Phone service  service is available only between 9 am – 10 pm but you can place an order online instead.
This is a statup effort by  Pushpinder Singh who started this innovative idea to deliver food on Train.Pushpinder has graduated with a Masters in Science Degree in Computer Science from BITS- Pilani and B.Tech from IIT-BHU.

Process for Booking Online
For booking meals, you can either use your train details, or your PNR . The listing gives you details regarding source of the meal, time of the train’s arrival at a particular station, services available, and meal prices. These services include in-train deliveries as well as on platform service, depending on the place you pick from. If you have filled source and destination of your journey then list of train will populates which is having this service,select the train from list and then list of Restaurant on various stops will be displayed. Select Restaurant of the stoppage and view it menu Once you place the order, fill in your details and get the order number, which can be used to track progress of your order.

You can pay on COD(cash of Delivery ) so there is no need to worry about you money. Here I want to add that there is no option for cancellation of order
you need to  either  call up the listed number +918800138811 or  request a call back else you can write a mail to contact@Travelkhana.com. but this has to be done at least an hour before its delivery (or the arrival of the train for which the delivery is scheduled)








At a Glance Feature

1) Get food of your choice according to menu
2) Get food on particluar time at particular station.
3)Food is delevery by various local vendor/Restaurent of that city or IRCTC
4) Online booking /Phone booking (+918800138811)
5) Since it is in startup phase it is increaseing its network.Currently they claim to cover more than 2000 train over 40 cities
6) Some food vendor/Restaurent in some location have some fixed minimum amount (say Rs 500 or 150 ) for order
7) Cost of food is somewhat costlier than than normal Pantry serice but having good menu
8)Order will be taken till one hour before the scheduled arrival at the given station or till the time allowed by the particular restaurant.
9) Delivery timings are 7:00 AM to 11:00 PM only
10) Call centre timings are 9:30 AM to 9:30 PM only

Indian Railways Increase Passenger fare w.e.f 22/01/2013

The Ministry of Railways has revised the  Passenger Fares w.e.f. 22.01.2013. Details of the fare revision are as under:-

S.N.	Class	Increase in Fare per Passenger Kilo Meter (PKM)	Minimum distance for charge
i	Second Class Ordinary (Suburban)	02 paise	No change (existing – 10 Kms)
ii	Second Class Ordinary (Non-Suburban)	03 paise	No change (existing – 10 Kms)
iii	Second Class	04 paise	50 kms
iv	Sleeper Class	06 paise	No change (existing – 200 Kms)
v	AC Chair Car	10 paise	150 kms
vi	AC 3-Tier	10 paise	300 kms
vii	First Class	03 paise	No change (existing – 100 Kms)
viii	AC 2 – Tier	06 paise	No change (existing – 300 Kms)
ix	AC First Class	10 paise	No change (existing – 300 Kms)

1. Minimum Fare: The Minimum fare chargeable will be Rs. 5.

2. Development Charge: On the revised basic fares which shall become effective from 22.01.2013, development charge shall not be leviable.

In the case of tickets already issued at pre-revised rates, The difference of revised fares and other charges on or after 22.01.2013 will be recovered either by TTEs on the trains or by the Booking/Reservation Offices before the commencement of journey by passengers. 

3. Fares of Rajdhani, Shatabdi, Garib Rath, Jan Shatabdi, Duronto, Rajya Rani and Yuva Expresses will similarly be revised .

THE Basic Fare, will be rounded off to the next higher multiple of five rupees, except that in cases where either ‘1’ or ‘6’ comes up as the last digit (i.e. in unit’s place) it will be rounded off to the immediately lower multiple of Rs. 5, i.e. Rs. 11.00, Rs. 21.00, Rs. 31.00 etc. would respectively become Rs. 10.00, Rs. 20.00, Rs. 30.00 etc. and Rs. 6.00, Rs. 16.00, Rs. 26.00 etc. would respectively become Rs. 5.00, Rs. 15.00 and Rs. 25.00 etc. and Fare values ending in Rs. 2, Rs. 3 or Rs. 4 would be getting rounded off to Rs. 5 and those ending in Rs. 7, Rs. 8, or Rs. 9 to Rs. 10 and so on and so forth.

Innovative idea by IRCTC to have advance Deposit (RDS scheme)

IRCTC has decided to launch a scheme allowing passengers to reserve seats against advance money with their IRCTC register account .This scheme is termed as Rolling Deposit Scheme(RDS).In this scheme the use can deopsit minum of Rs1500 and avail this faiclity. While paying the ticket ammout the user can select IRCTC deposite ammout or other traditional bank payment method.

It will reduce the payment gateyway time for the user as money will be deducted from your IRCTC and not from bank as is the current scenario
One of the best feature of this service is that IRCTC will not charge any payment gateyway charge for booking e-ticket
Another important point is that it will sure help to minimize the number of failure transaction in future
User can mange his account and also top up online. They can transfer money from his bank account to IRCTC account

IIT-Kanpur and Indian Railways Launch Real-Time Train Tracking On SMS

 IIT Kanpur and the Indian Railways have developed a real-time train information service, where a person can know the exact location of a train by sending an sms to a number.  According to railway ministry officials, the user has to type the train number and sms it to 09415139139 or 09664139139 to get the information.User has to just type train number and send to mentioned number.for eg. for train number 12302 user have just type 12302 in message and send to 09415139139 or 09664139139
Most intresting part of this service is that user need not to remember all those typical CODE for SMS and they have to just pay normal SMS charge which they pay normally for 10 digit numbers,They need not pay premium SMS charge.
As of now  this service is available for 36 pairs of trains  like Duronto, Rajdhani and Shatabdi. In next 18 months, rest of  trains are expected to be covered by the service. The Railways have earmarked Rs121 crore for the project, and plans to install a Rs 50,000 signal receiver on each train that will transmit its location.
The Railways have obtained clearance from India Space Research operation(ISRO) to operate the pilot system through satellite, and have asked permission for using satellite for other trains as well. CRIS, the technology arm of Railways, will sign an MoU with IIT-Kanpur shortly to execute the project.
According to Railways  that the trial run for the pilot project is complete and by the end of 2013, hopefully all mail and express trains will be covered by next 18 month.
Track Trains elsewhere
Apart from tracking train location on mobile via SMS, Indian Railways also launched a train tracking system on the web — Trainenquiry.com in partnership with RailYatri.in. Apart from that, in March 2010, Indian Railways had announced a similar project called Satellite Imaging for Rail Navigation (SIMRAN), which aimed at providing real-time train tracking through GPS and mobile (GSM) technologies. This project was built in collaboration by Research Design and Standards Organisation (RDSO), Lucknow and IIT Kanpur. The project was made available to public on trial basis in October 2011 on select trains. Users could track train location either via their web portal http://www.simran.in or SMS.

Indian Railways Inquiry made Simpler with mobile.Dial *139#

Indian Railways has came with every attractive idea of Inquiry system based on USSD on mobile.Now user need not to remember all the SMS keywords for various queries like PNR, seat availability ,fare, arrival departure, spotting a train location etc.But this service is currently available with limited Mobile operator like Reliance, Uninor, Docomo and Vodafone. I have tested on Airtel this is not avlabile right now may be they might extend there service but don’t worry here is few keyword SMS format that you can use to send SMS to 139 to get information if your operator doesn’t support *139#(USSD mehtod).

1.Ticket status Enquiry:

SMS “PNR”
eg: PNR 4341568666

2. Train Arrival/Departure Enquiry:

SMS “AD”
eg: AD 12012 011

3.  Accommodation availability:

SMS “SEAT***
eg: SEAT 12561 010712 0542 0571 SL G

4. Fare enquiry

SMS “FARE< DOJ**ddmmyy>***
eg: FARE 12561 230712 0542 0571 SL G

5. Time table:

SMS “TIME”
eg: TIME 12561

6. Spot/ Locate train:

SMS “SPOTor LOCATE
eg: SPOT 12561 or LOCATE 12561

Indian Railways Train Enquiry system got new Enhancement

Today I came across Indian Railways new Train enquiry website with different new user friendly feature. Currently this website is under BETA testing.The website will be launched in coming next week. The look and feel of site is very simple .When you browse the site you will feel like your are visiting a search engine website.
TrainEnquiry.com new web look is available here.

CRIS, the IT wing of Indian Railways, is beta testing an improved and clutter-free version of the Train Enquiry website that is far more useful than the existing one. The new website will not only provide the running status of trains but will also help you track the exact location of trains across the country.
This website is having unique feature you need not to remember long train name or train number,just you can enter source and destination you will get the corresponding trains list and you can select the train to get the update of running train. This website primary focused on Train enquiry as of now.

If we look from developer prospective this website has used AJAX.This website is as of now is not mobile friendly,but hope they will come out with some solutions.
Once you spot your train in the search results, just click on the train you will get detail of departure time of previous two station.It will also predict how far are next two station and its expected time to reach there.

Small pictorial tutorial is also available on website here.

>Get Indian Railways Ticket by as MMS from JULY 2011

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Rail ticket booking counter to take hours to stand in line will soon be a thing of the past era. E – After railway ticket booking tickets from the mobile facility is going to start. The service is expected to start from July2011. Rail Yatri sitting at home will be able to book train tickets from your Smart mobile.
Is certain that the railway passenger via MMS from mobile to send images of train tickets. Image on the screen of mobile tickets will be valid only for travel, tickets will not need to take print. But during the journey will take passengers along with ID proof. Rail Ministry officials to mobile ticket booking IRCTC (Indian Railway Catering and Tourism) will have to register on the website. Department from an ID and password will be issued. Thereafter Yatri IRCTC’s website on your mobile will be able to book advance tickets. Ticket booking on mobile screen – icon A form going to be filled online. The name, address, train number, class reservations, tour dates, etc. The required information will have mobile number. This feature has to be smart mobile which is the Internet. Smart mobile holder will be able to book tickets for their relatives. Passenger debit, credit or cash card will pay the ticket. Mobile ticketing on trains in addition to the root of the mobile screen, hire, berth availability etc. The information will also be available. Mobile Ticketing to the leading nationalized banks of the railway has been compromised. Officials of the payment process technology is being plugged.
 

1. IRCTC daily selling 2.80 million E – Ticket
2. Tickets Briqui 2.80 million revenue is derived from the daily  
3. 13.60 million in 2010-11 to 800 million more than ticket sales revenue received  
4. Website for instant tickets daily average of 2.5 to 3 million hits
5. During festivals the number of hits on the website reaches four million
 6. Kanuataroan booking railway tickets on the day sale of over three million