Indian Railways PRS: Be it at the railway counter or the IRCTC app, booking a sleeper or AC coach ticket, canceling a reserve ticket, checking the availability of seats in a train or preparing a chart – all this is done through a vast and complex digital platform of Indian Railways. This platform is known as PRS (PRS – Passenger Reservation System). This system is operational in Indian Railways to allocate and manage reserved tickets of various categories like sleeper, chair car, 3AC, 2AC and 1AC.
PRS stands for ‘Passenger Reservation System’. Here it is very important to know that not all types of tickets are booked through PRS. This system is only for trains and coaches where seat reservation system is available – whether you get confirmed ticket, RAC or waiting ticket. A separate system called UTS (Unreserved Ticketing System) works to book tickets for general (unreserved) compartments of general passenger trains or express trains.
How does PRS allocate confirmed and waiting seats?
Every day lakhs of passengers book seats in various coaches to travel all over the country. Some book space in sleeper, some AC or sitting chair cars. It is the responsibility of PRS to allot seats to all these passengers train and coach wise.
The PRS system of Railways is a computer based digital platform which works on a complex algorithm. All functions like Senior Citizen Quota, Women Quota, RAC Management and Waiting List Clearance are automatically handled by this system itself.
World’s largest system developed by CRIS
PRS has been developed by the ‘Centre for Railway Information System’ (CRIS), the technical department of the Railways. This computerized system was introduced in 1986 to replace the manual reservation counters. Today it also supports online and mobile bookings. Today, Indian Railways’ PRS system has become the world’s largest passenger reservation platform, enabling millions of people to easily plan their train journeys every day.