Railways...Booking Blues....

[deponti]

I have never been able to find any semblance of good logic or design in the Railways' booking procedures. There was a time, prior to the Internet, when one had to stand in different queues for even and odd dates. This meant that if you were going, say, to Chennai on the 2nd, and returning on the 3rd...you had to join two queues

Comments

Train Tickets

[ext_222733]

Deepa, you are not comparing apple with an apple here.
Do you think the software written travel sites for many countries are done by government employees?
No they are written by employees of private companies which run by strict SLA and something called Value Add which would provide something extra to the customer which would further enhance their business.

Is that what the government employees do? Never. They think they are doing a favour to the entire country JUST by being a government employee! How can you expect such improvements if this is the case?

Ram

Re: Train Tickets

[deponti]

I am comparing the bus sites in India to the railway sites in India..surely not a bad comparison...and it is often Indians who write software for other countries!

Re: Train Tickets

[ext_222733]

Deepa - 2 points:
- The sites we do for others usually have their usability design done outside. Usability is just about picking up in India now - lot of people think "it's those guys who create images & web pages". Longer way still for a Govt. Site to undergo usability analysis - I should know - I dealt with a large bunch of NIC idiots for years in my first job.
- All bus sites are driven by RedBus.in: I know the lot - they are excellent pros & it would be a sin to compare them to the asses at NIC (who probably get our important .gov sites done by their kids at home or, worse, do it themselves!)

_Hiresavi

[debbieann]

ahh, this captures so much, I'll have to point my friends to it - one of the hardest things for me in India was that I couldn't understand how things worked, now that I'm in Australia, it is so much easier. I thought it was just me, that I didn't understand it, but this post says, really it doesn't work so well. I could never book rail tickets online, it was a nightmare. I couldn't manage simple acts like paying the phone bill, setting up internet, or paying the electric bill. but then, I did discover one way - maybe it was wrong - but it worked - I asked my driver to buy the rail ticket and he did. Actually outside of the big cities it was a little easier to deal with the train tickets.

[ext_197906]

Please send this to Momotadi! Not that it will help, but...

[anonymous]

The govt sites are nothing but a learning portal for designers who design them. They have the worst user interface. They fail to realize that the user interface is as much important as all the other content in them. BSNL data usage checking is a pain. You cant pay the premium on LIC website. They have a complex registration for it.

Chandan

[anonymous]

hey deepa try sites like makemytrip.com where you can get the status and availability of all trains (classwise) to your destination and book tickets at any time. of course this service comes with a fee of 20/50 rupees. well worth it though. i've even cancelled tickets on this site and have got the credit without any problems. :D