Review: IRCTC App for Windows Phone
This came out as a big surprise for the day, IRCTC –the body behind Indian Railways ticket booking has officially launched its app for Windows Phone and Windows 8 in a team work with MMAD Private Ltd (A Microsoft Partner). A huge news for every Windows Phone user who have been planning to either make a booking via their mobile or checking on their already booked ticket.
How to login in the app using your IRCTC Account?
The first thing you should know that even though you can use your IRCTC account in the app, it works via TPIN concept. It’s a 4 digit password that can be generated by logging in your account on IRTC using your PC or any web browser and using the TPIN section. It sends out a 4 digit password to already registered mobile number with your account. Best feature, you don’t have to generate this TPIN every time you want to use this app.
Features of IRCTC App:
After you successfully login, you will be taken by complete surprise. It’s a beautifully designed app and hats off to the team who designed it. So what all you should be able to do using this app ?
- Book Tickets and the options are exactly the same as you see in your online account. To/From/Quota etc.
- Check PNR Status of your already booked tickets.
- Pull up passenger status info.
- Quick Book
- Check out booking history
- List out cancellations
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Here is the most positive thing about the booking process
- Finding stations is super fast and it shows up as soon as you type it. I guess they are using some offline list which makes sense as stations won’t change that fast.
- When you get a list of train, you can sort them by Name, Departure and Arrival.
- If the list is too long and you are aware of train names, you can search to quickly find it. Even that is fast.
- Once you select the class in which you want to travel, you can quickly look at the fare, path and availability of the seats and availability over a couple of days right on the same screen.
- In case booking process fails somewhere, the details like travelling date, passenger name, class selection, mobile number and so on are saved. This is a big time savior considering you are on mobile.
- The final booking process uses the web interface of IRCTC and it is neatly wrapped. I was able to use by debit card while other options are available.
- You get the final ticket right on your mobile which can be pinned to your Start Screen. << +1 for that. You can even us this as your ticket instead of taking a print out.
Here is what I really did not like it:
The App even though uses your IRCTC account it does not syncs data on your online account. All my booked tickets history, list of passengers were not available. This straight away means the data on your mobile stays here and data on web stays there. So any prior bookings will not be available.
The good part is all tickets booked via the app is available online. In case you wish to cancel your tickets, you will be able to do that either via WEB or using the app itself.
Also the app does not work between 8am and 12 noon to reduce down the load on IRCTC during these hours.
Summary:
Overall the app is well done and if you can ignore the non-syncing of your mobile data with your online account, it’s a wonderful app. Everything is in place and it works. However I will strongly recommend the developers to bring the online sync in place so previous bookings can also be managed via the app.
