IRCTC books record 20.06 lakh train tickets in a day amid festive rush

Indian Railways is undertaking several measures to modernise and strengthen its rail ticket booking system.

The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) has set a new ticket booking record! Online booking of train tickets now accounts for 89% of total train ticket bookings on the Indian Railways network and this rush became evident when the festive season train ticket advance reservation window began.Indian Railways has recently reduced the advanced reservation window from 120 days to 60 days. With Diwali 2026 on 8th November 2026 this year, the 60 day period advance booking began this week.

IRCTC sets 20 lakh ticket booking record

According to IRCTC, its website handled a huge rush on September 7, 2026. The ticket booking website registered its highest-ever single-day booking, with 20,06,353 tickets booked. The record was achieved amid festive-season ARP booking.The system continued to handle the heavy booking load the following day as well, with 19,50,699 tickets booked on September 8, 2026, IRCTC said. This further demonstrated the capacity of the NGet robust booking system to manage large volumes of transactions, it claimed.The current booking pattern shows that only 8.43% to 14.14% of the day's total bookings take place during the first hour, between 8:00 am and 9:00 am.

More than 85% of bookings are successfully completed later in the day.The first 15 minutes, from 8:00 am to 8:15 am, consistently see the largest booking volume, indicating the period of peak concurrent demand.During the festive season last year, the highest single-day booking stood at 18,40,203 tickets.

IRCTC modernizes train ticket booking website

Indian Railways is undertaking several measures to modernise and strengthen its rail ticket booking system, including the rollout of a new UI beta version from July 15, 2026.Online booking now accounts for around 89% of all reserved tickets. The continued system upgrades have also enabled IRCTC to handle exceptionally high booking volumes during the festive season, it says.IRCTC said that the record booking performance has been made possible by several important measures:NGeT refreshA comparison of the server infrastructure before and after the NGeT refresh shows a substantial increase in capacity.

The overall capacity of the ecosystem has been raised to approximately twice its earlier level by replacing the old servers with new ones.The increase has not been limited to hardware. Software optimisation and architectural improvements have also contributed to a substantial, manifold expansion in capacity compared with the earlier system.New user interfaceIRCTC introduced the beta version of its new User Interface with effect from July 15, 2026.

The redesigned interface has a contemporary appearance influenced by global design trends such as Glassmorphism, creating a more visually engaging experience from the login stage through ticket confirmation, IRCTC said.The new interface also aims to present booking information in a more organised and accessible manner. One of the key changes is that availability across different travel classes, including Sleeper, AC 3 Tier and AC 2 Tier, is displayed together on a single screen.This allows passengers to compare available options without repeatedly navigating between screens, making it easier to assess the choices and complete the booking process.System measures: CDN and Anti-BOTIRCTC has partnered with a leading technology player to deploy Anti-BOT and CDN capabilities. Anti-BOT measures have helped reduce malicious BOT traffic by 55% to 65% in recent months.The Content Delivery Network (CDN), meanwhile, is being used to serve static content and has reduced the load on the NGeT (Next Generation e-Ticketing) system.

This has helped improve the experience for genuine and verified users.IRCTC's Network Security Team is also taking action against fake websites and mobile applications that impersonate the organisation.Restrictions during the opening booking windowAuthorised ticketing agents across categories, including YTSKs, RTSAs and IRCTC Agents, are not permitted to book ARP tickets during the first 10 minutes of the booking window, from 08:00 AM to 08:10 AM.Since October 12, 2025, only Aadhaar-authenticated users have been allowed to book tickets during the opening ARP window.On each ARP opening day, the NGeT system has successfully handled between 1.33 crore and 1.74 crore logins and processed 17 lakh to 20 lakh bookings, reflecting its increased capacity to manage periods of intense demand.Action against misuseContinuous action has also been taken against misuse of the ticketing system. As part of these measures, 3.04 crore User IDs have been deactivated and 6.33 crore IDs have been placed under revalidation. In addition, 16,041 suspicious email domains have been blocked and 592 complaints have been filed on the Cyber Crime Portal covering 4.21 lakh suspicious PNRs.