Modernization of passenger reservation system: Indian Railways' dilemma

This teaching case discusses the challenges being faced by the technology managers at Indian Railways (IR) in the current scenario of a resurgent national economy coupled with increasing customer expectations. In the face of growing competition from road and low-cost airlines, to retain its customers, IR has responded by changing its business rules. The Railway Ministry expects a rapid response from Centre for Railway Information Systems (CRIS) to incorporate all these changes in the passenger reservation system (PRS). The old PRS, which is time-tested and reliable, and has been serving the customers’ needs for nearly two decades, is now proving to be relatively inflexible to match the rapidly changing business requirements. Although the current scenario of a constant need to change the programming logic of PRS has been making maintenance tougher for CRIS officials, they have realized that PRS is a time-tested, proven, and reliable technology. Though they would be happy to replace t...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2007
• Where: JITECH
• Authors: Shirish C. Srivastava, Sharat S. Mathur, Thompson S. H. Teo
• Keywords: Current Scenario, Greater Maintenance Flexibility, JITECH 2007, Old Prs