Railways caps waiting list to 25% of berth capacity to curb overbooking
Mumbai: The Railway Board has revised the upper limit for wait-listed tickets across all classes to 25% of the available berth capacity to streamline the ticketing system and curb overcrowding.
The change, communicated via a directive to all zonal railways, is set to bring predictability and discipline to the long-standing issue of unregulated waiting lists.
Until now, the waiting list system had no fixed cap, with numbers often soaring beyond 300 in Sleeper Class and over 150 in AC Chair Car during peak travel seasons. "This created a mismatch between confirmed bookings and the number of passengers boarding trains, leading to chaos, especially during festivals like Diwali and Chhath," a railway official said.
Under the new framework, the waiting list will be calculated as 25% of the identified berth count in each coach. Identified berths refer to those available for general booking after accounting for quota allocations such as for senior citizens, women, foreign tourists, and differently abled passengers. For instance, if 400 berths are available for booking after quota removal, the waiting list will be capped at 100.
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"This change will apply uniformly across all classes — sleeper, second AC, third AC, chair car — and also cover tatkal and remote-location bookings," the official said.
The revised cap will not apply to tickets issued on concessional fares or under govt warrants.
The move follows a series of passenger complaints about overcrowding caused by excessive wait-listed ticket holders boarding trains despite not having confirmed seats.
A previous attempt to curb this trend was rolled out temporarily during festive rushes, but this new cap marks a permanent shift in policy.
A circular issued by the WR said: "The implementation will be carried out through software modifications by CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems), with the effective date to be announced shortly."
CR, too, said the rule was applicable to it.
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