ABSTRACT

India has one of the most busy and largest rail networks in the world
which is known as Indian Railways, where 20 million passengers
travels everyday and which carries 2 million tons of freight daily. It is
one of the world's largest commercial or utility employers, with more
than 1.6 million employees. The railways traverse the every part of
the country from north to south, from east to west, c o v e r i n g a s
many as 6,909 stations over a total route length of more
t h a n 60 thousand kilometres. The Indian Railways as an institution is the
backbone of the nation. But considering that India has a rail network of
over 50 thousand kilometres, the expansion and development of this
great institution is very slow. Going forward, the Indian Railways is a great
opportunity for the nation to build an important pillar of Indian
infrastructure. This paper examines that what role can information
Technology play in modernisation and development of Indian railways.
 INTRODUCTION
HISTORY
In 1832, a plan for a rail network in India was first proposed but no
furthermore measures were taken for over a decade. Then Governor-General
of India Lord Hardinge allowed private enterprisers to establish a rail
network in India in 1844. 2 new railway companies were established and
those companies were assisted by East Indian Company. For the next few
years a lot of investors showed interest in this project which led to a rapid
growth of railways.

In the year 1845, the Indian Railway Association was formed by Sir Jamsetjee
Jejeebhoy and Hon. Jaganath Shunkerseth .On 22 december,1851 the first
train run between Roorkee and Pilran Kaliyar took place.0n 16th April 1953,
the first commercial train run between Bombay and Thane took place. On
February 3,1925 the 1st electric train run between Bombay and Kurla took
place. In 1952, it was determined to supersede the current rail systems by
zones. A total of 6 zones came in to existence in 1952. As India improved its
economy, almost all railway manufacturing units began to be constructed
indigenously. The Railways started to electrify its system to AC. On 6
September 2003 6 more zones were created from present zones for
management purpose and 1 further zone added in 2006. The IR now has 17
zones along with Kolkata Metro.
 INTRODUCTION TO THE ORGANISATION
Indian Railways, shortened as IR, is the state-recognized railway
company of India, which maintain and controls most of the
country's rail transport. It is supervised by the Rail Ministry of the
Indian Government.

Indian Railways has over 64,015 kilometres (39,777 mi) of track and
6,909 stations. After United States, Russia and China, India has the
world's 4th largest railway system. The railways travel across the
length and breadth of the country. More than 20 million passengers
and 2 million tons of freight is carried by railways. IR has one of the
world's gigantic commercial or service employers, with over 16
lakh employees. As to carriage, IR owns over 2 lakh (freight)
wagons, 8 thousand locomotives and 50 thousand coaches.

In 1853, Railways were introduced in India. By 1947, the year when

India got its independence, there were 42 rail systems. In 1951 the
networks were state owned as one unit, becoming one of the
largest Railway systems in the world. On a multi-gauge, Railways
officiates both long distance and central rail systems. It also
manages locomotive and coach manufacturing facilities.

Primarily, the Indian railways were planned and constructed by the

British, during their colonial rule of the subcontinent.
 INTRODUCTION TO THE RESRVATION
SYSTEM
About 550000 lakh commuters travels daily in Indian Railways in reserved
arrangement daily. The Passenger Reservation System (PRS) is now
automated which assists in booking and also in abolishing of tickets from
any of the 4 thousand terminals across the country. PRS provides the facility
to book and cancel the reserved tickets for journeys starting from any part of
the country and terminating in any other part of India, with the travel
distance of thousand kilometres and travels time as long as 3 days. PRS’s
pilot project was pitched on November 15th 1985, with the establishment of
the Integrated Multiple Train Passenger Reservation System (IMPRESS) over
northern railways. It is an online transaction computation system which was
formulated by the Indian Railways in alliance with Computer Maintenance
Corporation (CMC) Ltd. The goals of the Indian Railways with the launch of
IMPRESS was to facilitated its travellers with the booking accommodation on
each and every train from every counter, formation of train charts and
inventorying of the money gathered by the passengers. Initially IMPRESS was
applied only over northern railways but then this application was applied at
Mumbai,Chennai, Kolkata and Secunderabad in 1987. Because of the
addition of so many new locations and many reassignments, this application
system didn’t meet the huge expectations of the commuters. After the
failure of IMPRESS application system a new application system “CONCERT” ,
Country Wide Network for Computerised Enhanced Reservation and
Ticketing was introduced by the Centre for Railway Information Systems
(CRIS), New Delhi which initially used ‘C’ and also ‘FORTRAN’. The
Secunderabad PRS site was the first site where CONCERT was executed in
September 1994 and later it was executed at the other 4 Passenger
Reservation System sites There are 5 sites in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata,
Chennai and Secunderabad where PRS servers are maintained right now and
functions in a dispersed database process environment. With the use of
Railway/Department of Telecommunication (DOT) channel lines, fibreoptic
cable, switches, modem etc, all the information of all the terminals was set
up with their servers. In April 1999, the work of inter relation of 5 PRS nodes
networks was finshed. The Interconnectivity between the 5 PRS centres is
set up over 2 mbps hired BSNL lines. The booked tickets can be issued from
every part of the country, in any train, date or class between any two
stations from any reserving terminal of the PRS with the capacity of this
system.
Reservation, Cancellation, Modification and the Charting Modules, the
Accounting Module, and the Database Modules are the Major modules of the
PRS are the Reservation. The commuters request to book, cancel and modify
the journey through demand slips is handled by the system. Reservation of
the journey tickets, Cancelling and Modifying the reserved tickets,
Reservation Charts and the summary of Daily Terminal Cash are one of the
main outputs which are generated by the system.
Different types of Management Information System (MIS) Reports can also
be created with the use of this system.
 RAILWAY RESEVATION METHODS
There are two types of railways reservation;

 Online booking
 Counter booking

ONLINE BOOKING:

The general public can book tickets by using IRCTC website or

other websites like makemytrip, cleartrip etc. With this facility provided by
Indian people can reserve their tickets through their laptops, mobile
phones by a single click. The payment can be done through debit, credit
cards or net banking as per convenience. There are very minimal charges
which are applied when booking of the tickets are done through internet.

COUNTER BOOKING:

The booking of the tickets through counter is most common and oldest way
of booking the rail tickets. This method is still widely used in India and
most famous among Indian population. In this method People can book
their tickets to their respective destinations from the counters of
reservation which are available at all the railway. Nowadays apart from
reservation counters at railway department there are several counters
where ticket booking is available.