Indian Railways will begin migrating trains to an upgraded Passenger Reservation System (PRS) from August, and the Railway Minister held a review at Rail Bhavan directing officials to ensure passengers do not face inconvenience during the transition from the forty-year-old reservation system. Union Ministers of State for Railways V. Somanna and Ravneet Singh Bittu attended the meeting and the ministry issued a statement outlining the rollout. The ministry said preparations will aim to maintain continuity of services and minimise disruption to bookings and train operations.

Introduced in 1986, the PRS has undergone several upgrades over four decades as the national transporter expanded capacity by utilising new technologies. Internet ticket booking was launched in 2002 and the ministry said currently about 88 per cent of the country’s total train ticketing demand is being met through online platforms. The modernisation drive aims to improve resilience, scalability and passenger experience across reservation and information services.

The RailOne super app, launched in 2025, now employs artificial intelligence to provide more accurate predictions on ticket confirmations and to indicate whether a waitlisted ticket is likely to get confirmed, with the ministry reporting prediction accuracy has risen from 53 per cent to 94 per cent. The app offers integrated features for booking, cancellation and refunds for reserved, unreserved and platform tickets and supplies real-time updates on waiting status, train schedules, live running status and coach positions. Railways said further integration with passenger assistance services and operational tools will support the PRS migration.

The ministry stated that every day about 9.29 lakh tickets are booked through the app, including 7.2 lakh unreserved and 2.09 lakh reserved tickets, and that the app has been widely downloaded. These figures convert to 0.929 million (mn), 0.72 million (mn) and 0.209 million (mn) respectively, and download numbers were cited as 3.16 crore on Android and 33.17 lakh on Apple devices, equivalent to 31.6 million (mn) and 3.317 million (mn). Officials said the technology upgrades and increased capacity are intended to smooth the transition to the upgraded PRS and reduce passenger inconvenience during implementation.