Railways to soon make public status of reserved, vacant seats

The Indian Railways is working on a plan to enable passengers to see the status of seats available for booking a particular train by making the reserved charts public, a source in the ministry said.

"As of now, we need to make the reservation status public so that passengers can see the status of booking of a particular train. Like in airlines, it will show passengers who are booking the seats the ones that are already booked, marked in a different colour. This can be done through PNR. Choosing seats will be the next option," said the source.

The sources said Goyal issued the instructions after complaints from railway passengers about getting wait-listed tickets on certain routes, leaving them with no other option but to approach the TTEs. They also say that the TTEs then offer them vacant seats which could have been offered to them when they were booking tickets.

Senior officials, however, said that making the reservation details public could be a security issue and a cumbersome process as unlike in the airlines passengers in trains board and de-board at every station, resulting in changes in the status of bookings.

In the computerised Passenger Reservation System (PRS), confirmed berths or seats are allotted on the first come, first served basis till the availability and thereafter Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) or Waiting List tickets are issued.