Railway minister promises faster online ticketing system

Railway Minister Pawan Kumar Bansal presenting his Rs.63,363-crore (Rs.633.63 billion or $11.5 billion) maiden annual budget for his ministry Tuesday said he was well aware about the problems faced by passengers while booking tickets on the internet.
He promised a next-generation ticketing system by the end of this year.

"The system shall be able to support 7,200 tickets per minute against 2,000 tickets per minute today. It'll support 120,000 simultaneous users at any point against the present capacity of 40,000 users with capability to easily scale up as demand increases."

The advocate-turned politician also extended the internet reservation timing from 00:30 hours to 23:30 hours, promised a new system to book tickets through mobile phones, SMS alerts for reservation status and free wi-fi on select trains. - IANS