How IRCTC pulled a record 2 million train ticket booking on a single day
IRCTC recorded its highest-ever historic single-day booking of 20,06,353 tickets owing to festive season advanced reservation period booking
- Sep 11, 2026,
- Updated Sep 11, 2026 6:37 PM IST
The IRCTC recorded the highest-ever online train ticket bookings at over 2 million on September 7 owing to the festive season advanced reservation period booking. The system continues to sustain a high volume of bookings and achieved 1.95 million tickets on September 8.
IRCTC enhanced the capacity of the entire ecosystem to approximately double through induction of new servers in place of old servers. In addition to hardware augmentation, substantial capacity enhancement, manifold increase over the earlier system, has also been achieved through software optimization and architectural improvements.
A new User Interface beta version was introduced on July 15 this year, and the redesigned interface features a sleek, contemporary look inspired by global design trends, offering a visually appealing and engaging journey from login to ticket confirmation.
At present, about 89% of total reserved tickets are being booked through online mode. As per the present trend only 8.43%-14.14% bookings are completed during the first hour (8-9 AM) and over 85% of bookings are completed successfully later in the day.
The first 15 minutes (8-8:15 AM) consistently record the highest booking volume, reflecting peak concurrent demand.
With this upgrade, passengers now enjoy a more structured and easily digestible presentation of information, guiding them effortlessly through their booking process. The revamped interface consolidates availability information for multiple travel classes—such as Sleeper, AC 3 Tier, and AC 2 Tier—onto a single screen. This feature enables passengers to compare options at a glance, reducing navigation effort and empowering them to make informed decisions swiftly.
IRCTC has engaged a leading technology player for implementing Anti-BOT and CDN capabilities. Anti-BOT technology has resulted in mitigation of malicious BOT traffic to the extent of 55% to 65% in recent months.
All categories of authorised ticketing agents (YTSKs, RTSAs, IRCTC Agents, etc.) are prohibited from booking ARP tickets during the first 10 minutes of the booking window.
Due to continuous action against misuse, about 30.4 million User IDs were deactivated, and 63.3 million IDs put under revalidation; 16,041 suspicious email domains were blocked, and 592 complaints were lodged on the Cyber Crime Portal covering 421,000 suspicious PNRs.
The IRCTC recorded the highest-ever online train ticket bookings at over 2 million on September 7 owing to the festive season advanced reservation period booking. The system continues to sustain a high volume of bookings and achieved 1.95 million tickets on September 8.
IRCTC enhanced the capacity of the entire ecosystem to approximately double through induction of new servers in place of old servers. In addition to hardware augmentation, substantial capacity enhancement, manifold increase over the earlier system, has also been achieved through software optimization and architectural improvements.
A new User Interface beta version was introduced on July 15 this year, and the redesigned interface features a sleek, contemporary look inspired by global design trends, offering a visually appealing and engaging journey from login to ticket confirmation.
At present, about 89% of total reserved tickets are being booked through online mode. As per the present trend only 8.43%-14.14% bookings are completed during the first hour (8-9 AM) and over 85% of bookings are completed successfully later in the day.
The first 15 minutes (8-8:15 AM) consistently record the highest booking volume, reflecting peak concurrent demand.
With this upgrade, passengers now enjoy a more structured and easily digestible presentation of information, guiding them effortlessly through their booking process. The revamped interface consolidates availability information for multiple travel classes—such as Sleeper, AC 3 Tier, and AC 2 Tier—onto a single screen. This feature enables passengers to compare options at a glance, reducing navigation effort and empowering them to make informed decisions swiftly.
IRCTC has engaged a leading technology player for implementing Anti-BOT and CDN capabilities. Anti-BOT technology has resulted in mitigation of malicious BOT traffic to the extent of 55% to 65% in recent months.
All categories of authorised ticketing agents (YTSKs, RTSAs, IRCTC Agents, etc.) are prohibited from booking ARP tickets during the first 10 minutes of the booking window.
Due to continuous action against misuse, about 30.4 million User IDs were deactivated, and 63.3 million IDs put under revalidation; 16,041 suspicious email domains were blocked, and 592 complaints were lodged on the Cyber Crime Portal covering 421,000 suspicious PNRs.