Despite demand-supply mismatch, trains are preferred mode of transport.
Chennai: A recent study by RailYatri.in found that over 10 lakh passengers daily fail to get seats in trains across the country due to a mismatch in demand and supply. The survey also found that for bookings made for trains from Chennai Central, 19% people daily fail to find confirmed tickets.
Based on the data gathered from 30 lakh train travelers across the nation, the study revealed that there are nearly 10-12 lakh potential travelers who could not travel due to non-confirmed tickets on a daily basis. These are people whose waitlisted tickets did not get confirmed. Percentage wise this would translate to nearly 13% of long distance train travelers daily. In peak travel season, this number increases to about 19%.
Passengers, however, prefer booking well in advance towards the beginning of the 120-days window period as the tickets get sold out soon. “I am a frequent rail traveler but as my meetings are scheduled well in advance, I make bookings also over a month in advance. Getting confirmed tickets has not been really an issue for me,” said V. Rama Rao.
The results were obtained by data scientists at RailYatri.in used mathematical models to analyze the travel plans reported by over 30 Lakh travelers from over 3100 railway stations looking for seats in nearly 2800 trains.
Some of the stations with most demand and low supply of seats were Anand Vihar Terminus in Delhi (43%), Jammu Tawi (38%), Lokmanya Tilak (33%), Howrah Junction (28%).
“However, this would require hundreds of more trains running every day. Considering the already overloaded network, chances of more trains being added in the near future is difficult,” said Manish Rathi, CEO & Co-founder RailYatri.in.
“The train utilization in a lot of directions like Kerala, Howrah are full, and that’s where we introduce special trains. A lot of these special trains also run beyond their capacity,” said a Railways official.
