Title - CRIS launches enhanced interface for train enquiry

The Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS), the information technology (IT) wing of the Indian Railways, has developed an enhanced new interface for the National Train Enquiry System (NTES) which provides the latest information on the running of trains to the public.

NTES is the backend system which collects information about train running on near real time basis and disseminates information through various interfaces like nationwide unique number 139, website, face to face enquiry, mobile interfaces and so on.

The new interface for the website was made public for past one week as field trial to get users’ feedback.

According to an official press release, the interface, which offers quick and easy access to essential information for passengers, has been largely appreciated for its speed, simple interface and richness of information and smooth user experience. This new interface has been launched with effect from September 6.

The main features of the website provided under different tabs on the home page are:

Spot your train: This query offers information about a train like schedule, current running status, expected time of arrival/expected time of departure (ETA/ETD) at queried station.
The complete running of the selected train can be seen through this interface.

Station: This query has been given to replicate the display boards at station. One can see, sitting at home, the trains expected to arrive/depart at any given station in next 2/4/6/8 hours.Stations can be entered through code or name or both. Option is also given to automatically refresh the screen every two minutes.

Trains between Stations: Covers all trains on Indian Railways between any two stations. This complete information is presently not available on any other government website.

Trains Cancelled: This query displays all trains cancelled on IR. The tab displays trains which are cancelled through entire route as well as cancelled partially and providing service on partial route.

Rescheduled and Diverted: These queries display all trains marked as rescheduled or diverted on IR. The respective tabs display trains rescheduled timings and diverted route (from – to) information.

Some general characteristics are that all train numbers in different pages have been given as hyperlinks to view the schedule and current running.
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Pages have been kept light weight to enhance the speed of the website. All the information is navigable from a single home page with minimum clicks. Mobile version of the site is also available through same URL.

The interface has been made bilingual with Hindi version available on the website.

As part of the IR/CRIS ongoing efforts to enhance the quality and availability of information to public, new features such as separate pages for special trains and major events would be made available subsequently.

The existing website interface running as beta version will be replaced with the new interface. All other interfaces such as Events, Rail Radar, Rail Radar Fog View,  Special Trains and Mobile will be redirected to the new interface, the release added.