Chennai: Southern Railway has registered a massive surge in both ridership and revenue across its Vande Bharat Express trains, driven primarily by the introduction of a real-time reservation facility that allows current booking up to 15 minutes before a train departs from any station.

During the 2025–26 financial year, a staggering 77.38 lakh passengers travelled on Southern Railway's 24 Vande Bharat trains, generating a whopping ₹803.86 crore in revenue, officials announced on Monday. This marks a substantial jump from the 2024–25 financial year, which recorded 54.12 lakh passengers and ₹540.65 crore in earnings.

The current booking facility has proven to be a game-changer. In the 2024–25 fiscal, current reservations accounted for 298,989 passengers and ₹21.81 crore in revenue. However, in 2025–26, these figures skyrocketed to 742,428 passengers and ₹57.06 crore in earnings.

The 15-minute last-minute booking system was initially launched on an experimental basis across eight trains between August and October 2025. Following its implementation, those specific trains witnessed a 78% growth in current booking revenue and an 80% rise in passenger volume, prompting the railways to extend the facility to 17 more trains.

Southern Railway's Vande Bharat fleet currently leads the country in occupancy rates. Routes such as Mangaluru–Thiruvananthapuram, Kasaragod–Thiruvananthapuram, and Chennai Egmore–Nagercoil consistently log an occupancy rate of over 100%. This high percentage is achieved as multiple passengers occupy the same seats at different legs of a single journey, stepping on and off at intermediate stations.