Your refresh can cost a stranger their Tatkal seat

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You refresh a page to check for seats. Harmless, right? On a Tatkal morning, it can cost someone else their train.

December 2024. Around 10 AM, right as the Tatkal window opens. Users see this. E-ticketing not available for the next one hour. Please try later. On a Tatkal morning, that's a door slamming shut. October 2025, before Diwali. Server errors in the Tatkal window. Again.

Two kinds of traffic. Almost everyone is just checking availability. Only a lucky few actually book. But if both run on the same overloaded servers, the refresh flood wins. Real bookings crawl, or fail. Right in the minutes that matter.

Looking can live with a slightly stale answer. Slow is just annoying. Buying can't. A slow booking costs someone a real seat. So separate them. Physically, if you can.

July 2026. IRCTC puts a rebuilt site live. Enquiries used to top out near 4 lakh a minute. Now, 40 lakh plus. Ten times more. Bookings went from about 32,000 a minute to 1 point 5 lakh plus. Notice which grew more? Looking. About 12 to 1 became about 27 to 1.

Showing that a seat exists is a different beast from handing it over. Separate looking from buying. And give looking far more room.

Full breakdown in the lecture.