ixigo uses Big Data to predict ticket confirmations for trains

ixigo  launched a PNR prediction feature for train travellers. ixigo’s popular train information application with over 1.5 million monthly active users, “ixigo trains & hotels”, will now get PNR confirmation predictions in addition to the market-leading information, search & planning tools for train travellers.

For any given train’s wait-listed status, ixigo is now able to show the near accurate probability with which the ticket will confirm, so that travellers may decide whether or not to book a waitlisted ticket. PNR prediction feature also shows the probability of getting your ticket confirmed if already booked and solves a huge pain area for millions of daily train travellers. ixigo’s trains & hotels app gives more accurate PNR prediction than all existing PNR prediction services since ixigo has mined data from over 10 million PNRs over the last two years.

Rajnish Kumar, co­-founder & CTO said “ixigo has always believed in simplifying the lives of travelers and one of the pain areas we wished to solve was to make it easier for train travelers to decide whether they should book a waitlisted seat / berth on a train or not. Over 50,000 PNR status checks and nearly 200,000 train information requests are done on our app every day. This was an interesting big data project and we are happy with the outcome.  Our machine learning algorithms will keep improving the accuracy of the system with every new train PNR tracked inside our apps. We expect to go from the current 90% accuracy to 95% accuracy pretty quickly.”

In addition to PNR prediction, ixigo's trains & hotels app already incorporates several innovative features such as budget hotel bookings, cab bookings, packages, station alarms, platform numbers and coach positions of trains. ixigo’s unbundled apps for all travel use cases have now exceeded 5 million app downloads, making them the most downloaded travel search & planning apps in India. In a significant boost for ixigo’s mobile strategy, Micromax has recently made a strategic investment in the business.