Does anyone know how IRCTC allocates coach number and berth number, when we book an e-ticket?
We travel from Chennai to Trivandrum and back occasionaly.
Inorder to avoid standing up in queues at reservation counter for a long time and avoid the travel to that place, we usually prefer booking through IRCTC. Infact we are one of the valuable customers of IRCTC which might have earned so much of profit from us in the form of cancellation charge of tickets and booking charges.I think like that, but I dont know whether they even know us.
The transition from the regular system to internet reservation appeared so interesting for me as i could save time as well as my energy otherwise i might have wasted it at reservation counters. And the very good moment of witnessing the appearance of the 'Congragulations, your ticket has been booked" message on the screen always gave me immense joy.
I used to check the coach number and berth number too, which always appeared as a surprise for me.Sometimes I get 19 or 20 or 34 like that. I have noticed that If I book on ladies quota, I would always get S4 ,19. Safe and cool :-).
It was on the initial years of my travel to chennai and to trivandrum.After marriage, booking tickets became the duty of my husband.And he used to tell me that, whenever he books, he would get seats either at the exact beginning or exact end of the coach. I was a bit surprised and told him, oh i have never faced anything like this. I was lucky to get in middle.So the first time he booked we got seats in the 2nd or 3rd coupe.We were happy and travelled. Later on if we had counted the number of times we got a 'safe and comfortable' seat, it would be some 3/10. :-( :-(. Hence I told my husband, ok next time I will do the booking. I started booking and I dont know, thankfully we were getting seats away from the begining and end of coach. :-) So happy that we need not have to sit in a place close to the toilet,no light at night from the entrance, no slamming of the doors which would be opened at each station and never be closed, which may pave the way for the chill wind to vade in and always wake me up due to the chillness.
Time passed and once i was booking I got those unlucky seats and i just left it like that. Oh its ok, I am not getting the same always rt? so Why should i be upset. It went on like that for successive bookings too. either at the end or in the beginning.
I dont know whether irctc's booking software has any function to check if passenger_name='myname' or passenger_name='my husband's name' then
allocate bathroom seats. :-( :-( :-(. Hence now when i book tickets, the thing I am waiting to check is not the Congragulations message, but the seat number. I always pray before booking, Oh God, plz dont give me seat numbers ranging from 1-9 and 65-72. And to my dismay the case is not different in 3A also.
And I am not overstating,
we had a journey from chennai to trivandrum and back on January and had to make tatkal reservation. Both ways we got the "lucky" numbers 3 & 6!!!!. As we usually give preference for upper berth, we got 3 and 6. So on the return journey i thought, ok let me make a change , i gave middle berth as my preference. No change, I got seat no 5 . I thought so much about the reason and came to the conclusion that, something might have happened to their algorithm, that it might have been rewritten as
if user_id like 'myhusband's name' and passenger_name ='myname' and passenger_name='my husband's name' then allocate seat_no IN( 1--8, 65..72).
I decided. Ok let me create a new id and do the bookings. I made a new id and started the booking process. I checked the ticket availability. Plenty of tickets were available. and no tatkal this time. else i might have concluded that bathroom seats result due to less no of tickets or tatkal. IRCTC was pretty fast not as usual. My heart was beating fast. Entered the passenger details, Made the payment. Now waiting for the "lucky draw" .The page appeared finally and I dont know how to explain my feelings.................................................................................................
..........................................................................................................
$%%^&&*&&&@!#)__+<>:"{})( I felt like
damaging the software which allocates the seats . Again it was 3 and 6.!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! After a few minutes of shock, i thought ok , let me do the booking of return tickets. Went through the above process, with heart beating at a faster rate than before. and finally got............................................
Any guess????????????????????????
AS IF IRCTC HAS made a lifelong reservation of seat no 3 and 6 for me and my husband, we got those "beautiful" numbers again.!!!!!!!!!!!
see in both ways!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
hmmmmm. My poor heart. It was running as if it was going to get an olympic medal ,but made a drastic reduction in speed on sensing that 3 and 6 has been read by my brain and passed those 'signals' to my heart.
i think the algo has been framed like the following forever
if passenger_name='myname' or passenger_name='my husband's name' then
allocate bathroom seats. :-( :-( :-(. ALWAYS...........................
LIFE time membership in IRCTC for seat numbers 3 & 6.
Now painly waiting for the travel..................................
