Dynamic Fare Reduced

The flexi fare system introduced by the railways on Sept 9, 2016 has proved to be hard-hit not just on the pockets of passengers but on Railways too. Since its introduction, nearly 50% of seats are left vacant and railways incur huge losses for these empty seats. The dynamic fare scheme costed way more to passengers who then started preferring air tickets as the prices were nearly similar or were on lower side when compared with train tickets.

The flexi-fare attracted 10% increase in fare for every 10% of seats booked with a maximum cap of 50%. So for travellers who were to book tickets after 50% seats got filled ended up paying 1.5 times the original fare. For some classes the fare went so high that it got cheaper to fly than to take train journeys. Hence seats were left vacant and railways had to bear losses. For instance, check fares of Dibrugarh Rajdhani (12235).

Therefore to curb this situation, railways have proposed to waive off dynamic fare scheme in 40 trains to start with. There are a total of 142 premium trains where this dynamic fare scheme is applicable right now. So plans are to scrape dynamic fare system in 40 trains and reduce prices for remaining 102 trains by 50% for the last minute bookings for the seats that will be available up to 4 days from the journey date. There will also be a graded discount offer for trains that see bookings less than 60%.

Currently there are a total of 42 Rajdhanis, 46 Shatabdi trains and 54 Duronto trains in India. This flexi-fare scheme will be scrapped off from those trains that have seen 50% or less bookings. The plan is under its final approval stages and railways might soon announce list of trains where this flexi-fare scheme will be waived off. Let’s hope to get rid of this dynamic fare for all premium trains soon! You can also check PNR Status and can book train ticket on Trainman app.