IRCTC set a new single-day record of 20,06,353 train tickets booked online on September 7, 2026, as passengers began making reservations for the festive travel season under Indian Railways’ revised 60-day advance reservation window. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation said its ticketing system handled another 19,50,699 bookings the following day.
The record came after Indian Railways reduced the advance reservation period from 120 days to 60 days. With Diwali scheduled for November 8, 2026, bookings for the festival period opened this week, creating a concentrated surge in demand on the online reservation platform.
According to IRCTC, online bookings now account for about 89% of all reserved train tickets across the Indian Railways network. The corporation said the booking volumes recorded on September 7 and 8 demonstrate the increased capacity of its Next Generation e-Ticketing system, or NGeT, to process heavy transaction loads.
IRCTC said the overall capacity of its digital ticketing ecosystem has been raised to approximately twice its earlier level following an NGeT infrastructure refresh. The upgrade involved replacing older servers with new equipment, along with software optimisation and architectural changes that the corporation said have delivered a substantial expansion in capacity.
The booking system recorded its highest transaction volumes during the opening period of the reservation window. IRCTC said between 8.43% and 14.14% of each day’s bookings took place during the first hour, from 8 am to 9 am. The first 15 minutes, between 8 am and 8.15 am, consistently recorded the largest booking volume, reflecting the highest level of simultaneous demand.
More than 85% of bookings were completed later in the day, according to the corporation. On advance-reservation opening days, the NGeT platform has handled between 1.33 crore and 1.74 crore logins and processed between 17 lakh and 20 lakh bookings, IRCTC said. The highest single-day booking total during the previous festive season was 18,40,203 tickets.
IRCTC also introduced a beta version of a redesigned ticket-booking interface on July 15, 2026. The new interface displays availability across travel classes, including Sleeper, AC 3 Tier and AC 2 Tier, on a single screen. The corporation said the change is intended to make it easier for passengers to compare options and complete reservations without repeatedly moving between pages.
The corporation has also deployed content-delivery network and anti-bot capabilities with a technology partner. IRCTC said the anti-bot measures reduced malicious bot traffic by between 55% and 65% in recent months, while the content-delivery network serves static content separately and reduces pressure on the NGeT platform.
Rules governing the opening booking window have also been tightened. Authorised ticketing agents, including YTSKs, RTSAs and IRCTC agents, cannot book advance-reservation tickets during the first 10 minutes of the window, from 8 am to 8.10 am. Since October 12, 2025, only Aadhaar-authenticated users have been permitted to book tickets during the opening advance-reservation period.
IRCTC said it has continued action against suspected misuse of the reservation system. It reported deactivating 3.04 crore user IDs and placing 6.33 crore additional IDs under revalidation. The corporation also said 16,041 suspicious email domains had been blocked and 592 complaints had been filed on the Cyber Crime Portal concerning 4.21 lakh suspicious PNRs.
The next major test for the upgraded system will be the continuing festive-season reservation cycle, as passengers book journeys around Diwali and other peak travel dates. IRCTC said its infrastructure and security measures would continue to support high-volume online reservations during the period.
