Indian Railway Website Nuisance

 

The Indian Railway website irctc.co.in has been an excellent website for online ticket booking and I have been using it for a long time now. The earlier website at IndianRailway.gov.in, which provided information (although no booking) was also a good one.

But in the past several months both websites have disappointed me … in fact they have irritated me no end.

The IRCTC Website for online booking is way too slow (or let me say 'excruciatingly' slow) during the peak hours (morning 8 to 12). Several times when I have tried to book tickets on the opening day, it has taken me almost 2 hours to book a single ticket. The website becomes completely sluggish and does not even give basic functionality like the auto complete of the station names which is mostly the first step to booking tickets.

The site at 6 AM in the morning and 12 midnight gives a stellar performance and I have booked 2 sets of tickets in less than 5-8 minutes.

I understand that internet penetration in India is increased and the website must be attracting thousands and thousands (probably millions) of visitors in the peak hours BUT with so much of railway ticket booking volume being channeled through the website; the railways surely need to invest a bit more in infrastructure that can handle the current traffic. Hope they do it soon !

Coming to the erstwhile IndianRailway.gov.in website … it now has pop-up ads which completely spoils the website experience and ruins the ease of use. Every time I try to check for some trains or check PNR status; all I get is disturbing pop-ups. I don't mind staring at the ads in the side-bars and around the website but the pop-ups not only irritating but they also spoil the website experience. Why is railways showing pop-up ads … that is so decade ago !

Hope someone from the railways comes across this blog post and conveys the message to someone who can look into these suggestions / pain areas.

Comments

  1. Hemant KumarSun Jun 24, 07:39:00 AM

    I totally agree with your observation and share the same pain.

    Specially pop ups.. really? It is a govt site.. even commercial sites which are dependent on ads doesn't give so much pop ups. And this pop up issue is same for other railway sites also..If I spend 10 min on their site and do 4-5 operations, my window tab will be full of these popups which I then need to close one by one..Due to this I always try to go to their website via other sites like makemytrip or erail.in.. never directly unless these are not working.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SaswataSun Sep 15, 01:58:00 PM

    yes, indianrail website has become an advertising website where one can, if he has enough patience, also look for Train/reservation related information

    ReplyDelete

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