Since Railways is the most commonly used mode of transport by common people in India, information regarding Journey planning, Fare Enquiries, PNR status, Accommodation availability and like enquiries are of utmost importance to the common public.

 Till now, the following methods were available to access this information:

 1.                 From the Enquiry Counters at Railway Stations

2.                 From Press availability reports published in the daily newspapaer

3.                 Announcements in TV and Radios etc.

4.                 IVRS system on Telephones

There were various shortcomings in the above methods like:

1.                 Standing in long queues

2.                 Information which is old

3.                 Telephone lines congestions etc.

CRIS has developed and deployed the Indian Railway's web Site at Delhi for the purpose of information/dissemination to general public since February 2000, with a view towards overcoming the many shortcomings mentioned above.

On 28^th February 2000, all the common enquiries like Trains between a given pair of stations, reservation availability, PNR status, Fare, Train schedule and station codes were made available to the common public through the Internet. It has in a very short span of time become one of the most popular web sites in India, with peak daily hits of the order of 1.7 million hits per day.

The information on the web sites have also been available through SMS service on mobile phones, all over India.