Railways starts displaying reservation charts, vacant seats online

On the lines of airlines, the Indian Railways has started displaying reserved charts online to allow its passengers to see the status of seats while booking a particular train.

The user-friendly interface will give graphical representation of the train coaches and berth-wise accommodation status on website.

Railway Minister Piyush Goyal said Wednesday that the reservation charts will now be available for public viewing on the internet and will facilitate the prospective passengers in getting the information of the vacant berths available in the train after the preparation of the chart.

The system is now available on all trains across the railway network.

"Complete information of vacant berths from train source as well as intermediate locations will be available to the user. Prospective customer can use the information for onboard booking of vacant berths by TTE as per business rules. This feature is available in web as well as mobile version.

"This will make the entire process transparent," he said.

Just like booking a ticket in an airline, the website of the Indian Railways will show the seating layout with different colours to show the seats that are booked, vacant and partially booked.

The system displays coach layout of nine classes used in the reserved trains of the Indian Railways and more than 120 different coach layout have been incorporated.

This feature displays class-wise and coach-wise fully vacant berth availability information as per the First Chart of the train. First Chart is prepared four hours in advance to train departure.

If the second chart is also prepared, then the option to view the details of vacant berth available at the time of second chart will also be displayed. The second chart is prepared about 30 minutes prior to the departure of the train to accommodate the information of current reservations and cancellations done after first chart.

Both the charts will get updated for every charting location as the train heads towards it's destination. In addition to this, user will also have facility to view exact position of the berth allocated to a PNR in the graphical coach layout during PNR enquiry.

In the next 20 days, the facility will be available for Shatabdi and Rajdhani passengers at originating station even after the train has departed the station, Girish Pillai, Member, Traffic, Railway Board said.