Title - IRCTC Launches “Next Generation e-ticketing Journey Planner”

It appears that railway ticketing site IRCTC has revamped its journey planner to sport a different look and user experience. While it sounds fancy, this is not the complete overhaul which the government has promised.

The new look, being rolled out slowly to its 4 cr odd registered users, can throw some of the seasoned users off with the design. The key difference in the new IRCTC Journey Planner is in the second screen which appears after you key in your journey details and click “Find Trains.”

IRCTC is India’s largest online ticketing website. Earlier this month, a record number of 5.72 lakh tickets were booked online on the site. On an average, the site books nearly 4 lakh tickets. While presenting the railway budget this year, the Railway Minister had said that the department will overhaul the site to support 6x more users and 3x more tickets per minute.

The new screen looks something like this.

The confusing part is the tiny “Book Now” button which appears in the next screen. It is easy to miss. We booked a Tatkal ticket this morning and the site appears to be slightly faster, but that could be just us.

Recently, the ticketing arm of Indian railways launched its e-commerce site in partnership with Yebhi.com last month.  IRCTC’s online shopping site powered by Yebhi is live at shop.irctc.co.in and sells clothing, accessories, home decor and electronics.

In July, e-commerce company Yebhi had won the deal from the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC), to provide a white labeled solution to enable e-commerce on their site.