New Suvidha trains were introduced to replace premium trains. The most striking change is the scrapping of the waiting list, a first for a train in the IRCTC. This means that only confirmed and Reservation against Cancellation (RAC) tickets will be issued for these trains. Ticket cancellation can be done up to 6 hours before the commencement of the train journey. In that case, 50% of the fare will be refunded to the buyer’s account. If the train itself is canceled, however, the ticket price will be refunded wholly. In addition to these changes, in Suvidha trains tickets can only be booked under the General quota.
Dynamic price structure is a system wherein the price of a product changes according to the market demand. However, the pricing system followed by Suvidha trains is a little different. The seats/berths are divided into five parts of 20% of the total number of seats each. The pricing split up is as follows: the first 20% is charged at the Base fare + Tatkal fare, the second 20% at 1.5 time the Base fare, the third 20% at 2 times the Base fare + Tatkal, the fourth 20% at 2.5 times the Base fare + Tatkal and the last 20% at 3 times the base fare + Tatkal fare. Thus, with these Suvidha trains the earlier one books, the cheaper the price one an purchase its tickets at. The Dynamic pricing system causes travelling by Suvidha trains to be an expensive affair, especially as they seek to exploit the massive demand during holiday season.
The scrapping of the wait list by the IRCTC on Suvidha Trains is just the first step in an IRCTC agenda with the goal of doing away with the wait list on all trains by the year 2020. Let us examine the downsides and upside(s) to this.There are certain downsides to the scrapping of the wait list on these trains. Firstly, from the passengers’ standpoint, there can be injustice, especially in the case of Suvidha trains whose “dynamic pricing” seems to be based on the principle “the early bird catches the worm”. For example, say there are two individuals A and B. A wants to book his train ticket early and well before the journey commences, only to find that all the seats are booked. As there is no wait list, he has to search on another train or not make his journey at all. B, on the other hand, is a procrastinator. He waits till the last minute to book his tickets. However, by chance, some individual who booked a ticket on the train canceled, thus leaving a seat on the train vacant. B thus gets a seat on the train. Clearly, an injustice has been done to A as he was unable to get a seat on the train despite trying to book his ticket earlier than when B did.
Secondly, from the IRCTC’s standpoint, they could sustain a loss. In a hypothetical scenario, very soon before the booking and cancellation deadline arrives, for various reason, coincidentally, half the passenger who booked their tickets cancel their bookings. Due to the proximity to the deadline, even a portion of the cancelled tickets will not be rebooked and the IRCTC will incur a loss. However, when there is a wait list the canceled tickets will automatically and almost definitely be purchased. Thus, there is a great potential for loss for the IRCTC.
Thirdly, by scrapping the wait list, the IRCTC is losing its customers, especially the infrequent users. Without the wait list, customers may look at other modes of transport, such as bus and flight. When a train is full and there is a wait list, naturally people would buy the wait list ticket and hope they make it onto the train. However, without the wait list, it is too cumbersome for travellers to keep going to the IRCTC portal and checking whether any seat has been vacated. Thus, they would not be willing to wait and would understandably book their bus or flight tickets. However, this is not just a short term problem. In the long run as well, especially during holiday season when train tickets sell like hot cakes, travellers will not even check train availability and instead book their tickets for an alternate mode of transport. This is in contrast to what would happen with a wait list, as even making it to the wait list would deter travellers from considering any other mode of transport.
All this being said, travellers can benefit greatly from this. When one is on the wait list, one is in a state of limbo, neither here nor there. A confirmed, 100% seat on the train has not been guaranteed, but it almost has. This can be especially troublesome if one is on a time constraint or very near to the top of the wait list, and the time preparation of the chart is close at hand. In this situation, we come to an interesting junction, a junction I call the “wait list dilemma”. A dilemma is defined as “a situation in which a difficult choice has to be made between two or more alternatives, especially ones that are equally undesirable”. The aptness the word ‘dilemma’ is in this situation will soon become apparent. If one chooses to wait till the preparation of the chart, which is just 4 hours before the departure of the train, one runs the risk of not getting a ticket and not being able to get a ticket on another mode of transport (or incurring a large expense), due to the proximity to the journey, especially in the case of Air travel. Alternatively, one may choose to treat the ticket, when on the waiting list, as canceled and book a ticket on an alternate mode of transport. However, the nature of the Indian Railways is such that, most often tickets, especially on the higher end of the wait list, become confirmed tickets sooner or later. This would mean one were relinquishing an opportunity to travel on a cheaper or faster (with respect to bus travel and air travel, respectively) mode of transport. The doing away with of the wait list entirely, rids us, the passengers, of the decisional headache caused by the wait list dilemma. It also releases the passenger from attempting the impossibility of predicting the fluctuations of a service used by 13 million people daily.
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