Tatkal and its Avatars

Recently on my train journey back to home a lady joined us with three time the luggage I was carrying. On top of it she did not have a confirmed ticket and kept repeating the following sentences every 5 minutes( or whenever any fellow passenger looked at her ( obviously she too had to look at him/her then !) ):

" I booked my ticket 3 months ago, it was wait-list no. 135 then, its 135 even now"

" I booked in 1st AC, in 2nd AC, in 3rd AC, in first class, but couldn't get a confirmed ticket"

" Railways are so bad, all are crooks".

I thought for a moment to interrupt her and point to her that there was no 1st AC in our train, but I refrained for the fear of listening to her all over once again. But it again made me think for the umpteenth time, in the last few months, about the "Tatkal" scheme.

Before I proceed further, I must say I genuinely admire the ingeniousness of the person who came up with the concept of "Tatkal" in Indian Railways sometime earlier in this decade.

I admit that it has been, and still is beneficial for many passengers in many ways.

It has also helped Railways improve their earnings.

But somehow I still feel there is a lot fishy about Tatkal.

I am not sure whether it is the due to some travel agents, or some railway staff, or due to the nexus between the two, but "Tatkal" continues to be a mystery for not only me but for many others.

You book a ticket 3 months early, and you may still end up getting a wait-listed ticket, even though when you actually travel on the train ( after or without booking a ticket through "Tatkal") you find many empty seats. Plain economics tell us that it is better to extract "that extra bit" from someone who has to travel anyhow. So why not project something different from reality and then sell "Tatkal" and make profits? Who knows that the " wait-listed ticket" was infact not "wait-listed" actually?

The earlier avatar of "Tatkal" when you can book a ticket 5 days in advance, and you can book only from the starting destination to the last destination, generated great revenues for the Railways. A ticket from Delhi to Chennai which can be sold for something like Rs 500 now can actually be sold for Rs 800 without any extra investments. All that Railways needed to do was to wait till 5 days before the journey and sell the ticket to those who are willing to pay that much !

Using the language of marketing and economics, it is somewhat like identifying your customer, segmenting it, and then extracting the maximum consumer surplus for it. After all when a person is willing to pay Rs 900 ( when you deliver it to him at the "right time"), why should you sell it for Rs 600? Moreover passenger does not have any other alternative ! He has to travel on the Indian Railways after all !

Consider a further sub case of the above : 3 passengers willing to board that train on a "Tatkal" quota : one from Delhi to Bhopal, the second from Bhopal to Nagpur, and the third from Nagpur to Chennai. When all of them individually buy the "normal" tickets, Railways could get somewhere around Rs 700, while if it sells the same Tatkal ticket to them ( either directly or as some Ticket collectors do in the train by way of "allocation"), Railways earn around Rs 2700 ! Same seat being "sold" for thrice the amount ! Does it not make great business sense ?

5 days, and end to end booking were the most potent feature of the "Tatkal" scheme. It generated great revenues for the ticket agents as well. I am also not sure that who actually are in need for urgent tickets make their decision 5 days in advance or 1 or 2 days in advance. Create more "apparent" paucity for the tickets, wait for the passengers to panic, and then sell them at higher price knowing fully well that they will be sold !

Now coming to the second avatar of "Tatkal".

2 days, different rates for different classes, different rates according to different seasons, and no need for end to end bookings are the new features of this brand new edition. Railways recognised after some time that there still is a sizable chunk of population who would rather not go than to pay extra money ( which earlier could go in excess of Rs 300, if you get the ticket from agents). So in order to appeal to them Railways come out with the revamped edition of "Tatkal". In many ways it was a much better bargain for the customers. It has indeed resulted in more willingness on the part of many passengers to opt for "Tatkal" who earlier resisted the temptation due to the high charges.

But one trend which continues from the earlier period is the "vanishing" of tickets as soon as the booking commences, and then, bumper harvest on "Tatkal" tickets. Go to any ticket counter in India, or try logging through internet to book your tickets, if you get the "Tatkal" ticket, consider yourselves very lucky !

Even the movement of "wait listed" tickets is very fishy. Wait-list no. 1/2/3/4 remained 1/2/3/4 for one of the journeys undertaken by me, but Wait-list no 12/54/200 odd all got confirmed. Confused? I was indeed to find it on reaching the station, that too when I had booked a ticket for a "season special" train.

Though there has been a lot of improvement in the services of Indian Railways, lack of transparency as far as wait-list movement is concerned, as well as "Tatkal" bookings often leave us, and especially me asking for more.

 PS : I know that what I and many other people think ( and what I have described above) about the booking ways of Railways may not actually be real, but such is the absence of clear cut stated terms on these topics that people talk. And they will continue to talk unless Railways takes corrective measures to address the issues.  And I had obtained the ticket 2 days before the journey mentioned in the first passage, through "Tatkal" !