Now passengers of Indian Railways can secure cheaper tickets if they book early as the Railways consider taking on the Airlines model.

This is news to motivate us to make our travel plans early if we want to avail discounts anywhere between 20% to 50% on Indian Railways tickets. Following the example of Airlines, Indian Railways too start following the concept of advance booking of tickets. Cheaper deals for advance booking is are under consideration by a fare review committee. If approved by the Railways Board, Indian Railways will facilitate cheaper travel for passengers.

Highlights

#1 The railways travel will follow flight travel pattern. Depending on the number of available seats on a train there will be graded discounts. The recommended discounts by the review committee are 20 to 50% discounts depending on vacant seats at the time of passengers booking.

#2 A further surprise is discounts for available seats if after the charts are already made. The slots for booking cheaper tickets are between 2 days to 2 hours before the start of the train journey.

#3 Preferred seats for railways passengers such as lower berth will now be charged more. But the same is without charge for senior citizens, people with disabilities, pregnant women etc.

#4 The trains of Indian Railways that arrive at convenient times will have higher priced tickets as against those that reach at odd and inconvenient hours.

#5 Tickets will also be deferentially priced depending on peak seasons and festive seasons as against lean or regular season when the fares will be slashed.

These are points that show similarity with the ticket pricing patterns of the Airlines industry and may now be adopted by the Indian Railways that has a huge passengers volume.