I think Indian railway should shut down their web sites (all), but specially www.irctc.co.in a web site where you can book your ticket.
This is the worst web site I ever came across. if you think that in place of booking ticket at railway reservation center and wait for hrs in a queue, lets book a ticket online to save all this time, then I will say you are wrong its better to book a ticket at reservation center than a web site
First of all this web takes long time to load, then again long time more than a 1-2 min to login, then you need to search your train, there it again takes time..., then you need to select a train and check the availability, if it available then say book ticket and then enter the name of passengers and also identity details of one passenger, then confirm that and then say book, then it will redirect you to payment page and again you need to select different payment gate way and then do the payment... and then take a print , big thing if you do not have a printer connected to your machine then ... ??? since there is no option to save the ticket. :( only print
You must be thinking that above process must be taking not more that 5 min? yes you are right this should not take but since this is a India railway web site it take more time... like for every post back it take more than 1-2 min, so calculate the post backs and multiply it by 1.5 (average) its more than 30 min
The most horrible thing I face in this is Session Expiry , I don't understand what are their session expiry policies, within a min or 2 the session get expire and you need to login again to web site and .... Start you process again from first step (login), means if you are in between the process of confirm the ticket and do the payment if your session get expire or timeout occurs for the post back event then...; you will get a nice Error message and ask you to go to home page where you need to login again and again start the entire cycle
Let me tell you in my last 2 years use of this web site I never able to book a ticket without getting any error and in less than 1/2 hr for a ticket.
Other things I you can notice that the looks are also not so good , see the image quality of the top banner its so bad...
One more important thing I forgot to mention, this is not a 24 hr service , after 11:00 PM you can not use this web site for booking
I do not understand where is problem is ? in technology ? server capacity ? or the system architecture? answer is NO.. then ?
why a big organization like Indian Railway which is own by the Government of India can't have a simple plain web site where one can book a ticket in 5 min, can search the train easily, can get accurate time table for trains ???
the Answer is YES they can...
but only problem is THEY DON'T WANT THAT...
