As we already know, the Indian Railways had decided to integrate the surge pricing system for premium trains including Shatabdi, Rajdhani and Duronto, starting September 9; consequently passengers were forced to buy tickets at a price higher than the previously prevailing fares.
The aim of the railways is to earn about Rs. 500 crore from these trains on the basis of the new fare system. There are a total of 54 Duronto, 46 Shatabdi, and 42 Rajdhani trains. The revenue target from passengers for the current fiscal is Rs. 51,000 crore.
Those who don’t know about the flexi fare system already, please make a note of the same:
10% of the seats will be booked at the usual fare in the starting, but it will increase by 10% with every 10% of berths sold, to an upper limit of 50%. This flexi fare system will be introduced in Chair Car, AC 2-Tier, and AC 3-Tier in trains, besides in the Sleeper class in Duronto trains.
Due to already existing high fares in First AC and Executive Class, these segments have been kept out of the dynamic surge pricing system.
Last week, the average price of ticket (that too one-way) for Kalka Shatabdi costed passengers between Rs. 750 and Rs. 900, which would have ideally been Rs. 620, had the previous pricing system stayed in place.
Likewise, tickets for Chandigarh-New Delhi Shatabdi costed passengers between Rs. 880 and Rs. 1,110.
Many passengers are finding it hard to deal with the new surge pricing system. According to Arindam Roy, a software engineer, “One cannot plan an instant trip as the ticket will be highly-priced. And for a distance such as that between Chandigarh and Delhi, one rarely plans for months.”
