How Indian Railways allocates seats? Everything you need to know

Indian Railways is the fourth largest rail system in the world. More than 25 million people travel by train in India every day. This number of train passengers is almost equal to the population of a large country like Australia.

Train travel is very convenient. That's why most people in India prefer to travel by train. There are two ways to travel by train. One can travel in reserved coaches or in unreserved general coaches.

The unreserved coach of the train is called the general coach. Any passenger can take a general ticket and travel in it. The number of passengers is not fixed. Any number of passengers can travel.

If someone books a ticket in a reserved coach of the train, they are allotted a seat number. That passenger can travel on the same seat number. In such a situation, the question arises as to how the railway allocates seats to passengers booking tickets.

Seat allocation in trains is done on a first-come, first-served basis. Therefore, the earlier we book before the date of travel, the higher the chances of getting a seat.

When booking a train ticket, you can choose lower, upper, middle, side lower, or side upper berths. It cannot be said for sure that you will get this berth. If the selected berth is not available, another berth will be provided.

At the same time, to balance the weight of the train, the railway first allocates the middle berth during reservation. After this, an equal number of berths are allocated in the front and back. This ensures that the weight of the train remains balanced.