Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation or IRCTC has come out with an Android app dedicated for mobile users to let them book tickets using their smartphones.IRCTC has finally launched the official app for Android called IRCTC Connect. Last year IRCTC app was launched for Windows Phone 8 and Windows 8 devices developed in partnership with Microsoft and it was launched by BlackBerry for BlackBerry 10 smartphones back in August. Similar to the app in other platforms, it lets you book tickets, make PNR enquiries, check booking and cancellation histories and more.
After laying hands-on with the app, I feel that the IRCTC app is designed with all the essential features associated with Indian railways. All you can do in the IRCTC website are available in its app version too. You can look for trains, check availability, check train schedules, book a seat, surf the booking history, and cancel a ticket at ease.
Well, as IRCTC notes it, rail ticket booking is made rather simpler. You can now book your seat with swipes and touches. The IRCTC Connect is well designed to let passengers from across India to manage their IRCTC accounts at the comfort of an Android phone or tablet. With a fast net connection, your train booking is awesomely simple, easy and quick now.
If you ask what is unique with the IRCTC app, I will say nothing much more. It is a regular app that brings together all the features available in the website to a portable device. Notably, the app has a one-step login for existing users, and cool options to search and book train tickets, view and cancel booked tickets, check PNR status and get journey alerts. IRCTC has released a tutorial for the app in PDF format.
Install the newly launched IRCTC android app and book a railway ticket anywhere in India at your fingertips." Please note that your smatphone should have Android 4.1 or its higher versions. This free to use app can be easily downloaded from Google Play Store. The size of the official application is 12 MB
The app requires your IRCTC login details to be used. Once verified, the app allows you to search for trains between your source and destination. Once you have finalised on that, you are taken to the next screen which will give you a list of trains between those stations and you can select a particular train by tapping on it. Tapping on your selected train will show you the availability. After selecting the right choices, you then proceed to book your tickets. It is quite a straight forward process and if you have booked a railway ticket online, you will feel right at home. Do note that tickets cannot be booked via the app from 8am to 12pm.
Features
- One step login to existing users
- Search and Book train tickets
- View and Cancel tickets
- Retains recently added passenger details
- New Users, register from App directly
- Upcoming Journey Alerts
There are more menus such as My Booking, Cancel Ticket, My Profile and so on. You can also cancel your booked tickets via the IRCTC Connect app and the app can also retain recently added passenger details. For first time users, IRCTC lets you register from the app itself and you also have a PDF explaining the IRCTC Connect app.
So far, the IRCTC Connect app has seen 5,000-10,000 installs and of the 843 reviews. the IRCTC Connect app has got an average rating of 4.3 / 5 which is pretty good.Have you downloaded the official IRCTC app for Android? Do you like/hate it? Let us know your views in the comments section below .