Accelerating Cashless Public Transit: An Emprical Evaluation of Digital Banking & in-House Payment Gateways in Irctc E-Ticketing Eco-System

ABSTRACTDigital banking has become a critical enabler of efficiency, transparency, and scale in publicservice delivery in India. The Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation representsone of the largest digital transaction ecosystems in the country, handling millions of railwayticketing and payment transactions annually. This study examines the role of digital bankingin strengthening IRCTC’s e-ticketing operations, fare collection, and the performance of itsin-house payment gateway, IRCTC i-Pay. The study is based on secondary quantitative datacollected from IRCTC Annual Reports covering the period from 2014–15 to 2023–24.Descriptive statistics, growth analysis, and compound annual growth rate are used foranalysis. The results show sustained long-term growth in e-ticket bookings, a sharp structuralshift towards mobile app-based transactions, consistent growth in fare collection, and rapidexpansion of i-Pay transaction volume and revenue. The findings confirm that digital bankinghas significantly strengthened IRCTC’s operational efficiency, revenue generation, andresilience during post-pandemic recovery