DEVELOPMENTS IN PRS:HOW THE INFORMATION CAN BE UTILISED FOR

IMPROVING THE SYSTEM

By:- ANURAG KAPIL

IRAS

Concept of Passenger Reservation

System • Booking

  Simple ticket selling.

    No guarantee of seat.

• Reservation Ticket & guarantee of accommodation.

Development Of The PRS

• Manual system.• Infirmities With The Manual System.

– Slow and time consuming – Unbalanced load on clerks– No updating of the of current status – Inadvertent errors by the clerks – Problem of messages– Malpractices

Complications Of The Reservation System

1.    Large number of fares – telescopic, circulars etc.

2.    Seven different classes of travel.

3.    Thirty different quotas.

4. One hundred and twenty five different types of concessions.

5.  Ninety different types of the layouts of the passenger coaches.

6.     And in same fashion different types of refunds.

7.     Accounting.

8. Excess and short fare remittances.

Path Of Computerisation

• CRIS (Center for Railway Information System)

  IIMPRESSMPRESS (Integrated Multi Train Passenger Reservation System)

• Written in Fortran using VAX system • One-to- one communication and linkage.• Thus requiring more process time. • Cannot respond to many queries

simultaneously. • Thus reduced efficiency

 CONCERTCONCERT   (Country-Wide Network For Computerized Enhanced Reservation And

Ticketing)

• Developed by CRIS.• Is a total networking solution to Indian Railways PRS.• Operates from five regional centres(Delhi, Bombay,

Calcutta, Madras and Secunderabad).• Machine language used is 'C‘.• One-to- many communication thus requiring less

process time. • System can respond to many queries. • Uses client-server model for distributed computing is a

total solution to the networking of the PRS.

Information in a Computerised Ticket

Train number Date of travel Distance Class & Coach of accommodationOriginating & Destination station Boarding station Seat & Berth number

Sex and Age of the passenger Charges paid in figures and wordsTravel Authority

Time of departure at the boarding station and originating station PNR numberRandom number unique to train-date-class

TYPES OF THE REPORTS GENERATED BY THE PRS AND SEND TO TRAFFIC ACCOUNTS OFFICE

SN TYPE OF INFORMATION MONTHLY PERIODICAL DAILY1 SUMMARY(CASH & PSGN INF) Y Y Y2 SUMMARY(CASH , INFO) Y Y Y3 SUMMARY(TKT & PSGN INF) N N Y4 SUMMARY OF GROSS EARNINGS Y Y Y5 GROSS EARNINGS(PRS SITE WISE) N Y Y6 STATEMENT OF VOUCHERS Y N Y7 STATEMENT OF CST Y N Y8 STMT. OF CONC. (WITH SUPPORTING) Y N Y9 STMT. OF MD/SPLCAN TKT Y N Y10 STMT. OF NON ISSUE TKT Y N Y11 CANCELLATION SUMMARY STMT. N N Y12 RTC STATEMENT Y N Y13 CONTINUITY STATEMENT Y N Y14 EARNINGS-ST5 STMT. Y Y Y15 DAILY STMT OF BANK CARD TKTS Y N Y16 DAILY BANK CARD- ROPD TKTS ST N N Y17 DAILY BANK CARD- MODIFIED TKT N N Y18 DAILY BLANK PAPER TKT REPRT N N Y19 GROSS EARNINGS. GAUGE WISE Y Y Y20 STATEMENT OF RESV. FEE Y N Y21 HOURLY SUMMARY OF TXN(NORMAL HRS) N N Y22 HOURLY SUMMARY OF TXN(BEF 08.00) N N Y23 HOURLY SUMM. OF TXN ( AFT 20.00) N N Y24 BILL REGISTER Y N Y25 VOUCHER REGISTER Y N Y26 LINKING STATEMENT OF VOUCHERS Y N Y27 TRAINWISE DELAY STATUS REPORT N N Y28 CHANGE OF NAME REPORT N N Y29 GROSS EARNINGS (L/F) Y Y Y30 SAFETY SURCHARGE REPORT N N Y31 USER WISE DAILY SUMMARY(CASH) N N Y32 CLASS WISE SAFETY SURCHARGE REP. N N Y33 STATEMENT OF FREEDOM FIGHTER Y N N34 STATEMENT OF POLICE/JAIL REQ. Y N N

Utilization of Reports by the Traffic Accounts Office

• Station Balance Sheet.• Earnings from Originating, Terminating Traffic. • Budgetary processes. • Cancellation trends. • Monitoring that the customer is paying proper

amount .• Issue bills to Defence, P &T, Parliament and

Assemblies. • Apportionment calculations. • Traffic Fore-casting.

Improvements(Usually the Information is Delayed)

• Traffic Accounts be given a dummy terminal to monitor the data and the information.

• All the information be made available to the Traffic Accounts Office On-Line.