IRCTC imports 5 high-capacity servers from Singapore to improve e-ticketing operations

In yet another initiative to speed up e-ticketing operations, Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has imported five new servers from Singapore that will phenomenally change the way passengers book tickets on its digital platform.

The initiative to import five new servers from Singapore comes close on the heels of IRCTC introducing two new high-speed servers earlier this month that have doubled peak-time efficiency for booking Tatkal tickets in the morning hours.

IRCTC Chairman and Managing Director Dr A K Manocha today said the five new HP Itanium servers, to be installed shortly in the middle layer of the Passenger Reservation System (PRS), would considerably speed up the booking of e-tickets and streamline the Next Generation E-Ticketing System (NGET).

“There are already five servers in the PRS at its middle layer. With the addition of five new servers from Singapore, their number would go up to ten,” he informed.

Mr. M.Srinivas MS, Addl GM (Software), IRCTC said the introduction of five new high-speed servers would substantially enhance the website performance. “The entire procedure of e-ticketing will get a facelift with improvement in website’s efficiency, log-in time and payment gateway,” he added. .

With the introduction of five new servers, the number of concurrent users will go up from the existing 180,000 to 300,000 while the existing capacity to book around 15,000 tickets per minute will go up considerably, he pointed out.

IRCTC is also planning to increase its network bandwidth from the existing 1.4 GB to 1.7 GB in order to enhance the performance of e-ticketing operations.

Earlier on June 1, IRCTC had installed two Linux-enabled servers, substantially raising the booking capacity of e-tickets, much to the relief of passengers jostling for tatkal reservation which faces heavy rush in its first 15 minutes since 10 am when the service opens every day.

The introduction of five new servers, which are in the process of being installed, is vital, considering that 54 per cent train tickets in the country are booked through the IRCTC website. The average daily sale of train tickets through the portal, which is the world’s second busiest with 3 crore registered users, is around 5.5 to 6 lakh. It has registered a record 14,800 tickets per minute.

IRCTC, which is a 16-year-old ‘mini Ratna’ PSU of Indian Railways, had introduced e-ticketing in 2002 through its digital platform. The website was first upgraded in end-April last year, facilitating 1,50,000 concurrent connections (users at a time) and the ability to entertain 1,000 enquiries per second.

On April 1 this year, when advance reservation period was made 120 days, IRCTC improved its national record by enabling booking of 13,45,000 tickets.