National Informatics Centre's Reservation Availability Position Information Display (RAPID), is a facility which provides information on the reservation status of trains to the general public. It first became operational at the New Delhi Railway Reservation Centre in 1988. RAPID was gradually installed at other locations in Delhi. The installation of RAPID at the Lucknow Reservation Centre, UP, marked the beginning of the effort to make this facility available all over the Country.
The configuration of the Lucknow RAPID system takes into account all the trains arriving at, and leaving from Lucknow Station, and classifies them into five groups according to their routes. The reservation status of various trains on a route is displayed on one particular monitor according to the grouping of the route.
The reservation status is maintained in the VAX computer of the Northern Railway Reservation Computer Centre in Delhi. The reservation availability data of the trains is transferred to the personal computer located at the Lucknow Reservation Centre, at regular intervals. This data is used by the software developed by the National Informatics Centre, New Delhi, to create screens for telecasting. These screens or pages are further grouped into a magazine and with the help of an inserter card, sent for public display in the teletext format.
The reservation status of a train for the next 28 days is displayed in two pages. The displayed status is broken down into a class format (1st AC, Chair Car etc.) for convenience of Users. Various colours and display modes are used to indicate the reservation position on different dates.
| GREEN | Seats/Berths available | | --- | --- | | YELLOW | Reservation Against Cancellation (RAC) | | VIOLET | Waiting List | | RED | Not Available | | BLACK | Train not available on that day | | BLINK | Few seats available (Applicable with green) |
On August 11, 1992, the system was further upgraded by the addition of a facility which enables confirmation of waiting list tickets.