Passengers face 30-minute delays during morning rush at Aqua Line

Mumbai's Metro Line 3 faces delays of 30-40 minutes due to operational glitches, frustrating commuters during the morning rush hour.

Mumbai: Operation-related glitches continued on the third day of the partially opened phase 1 of the underground corridor of Metro Line 3 or Aqua Line, as office-goers faced 30 to 40-minute delays in the morning rush hour. Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday inaugurated the 12.69-km-long Phase-1 of the Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) to Aarey Colony JVLR stretch of Metro Line 3.

Passengers face 30-minute delays during morning rush at Aqua Line

Among the three days, Wednesday morning was the worst with no services for nearly 35 minutes at Sahar Road and Bandra Kurla Complex (BKC) metro stations.

The disruption occurred at the crucial morning rush hour of 9.30am, when office goers hop on to the metro to reach their respective workplaces primarily at BKC, MIDC or SEEPZ.

“@MumbaiMetro3 stuck at Sahar station for the last 30 minutes. Train at a halt. No updates for passengers except apologies for delay announcement,” posted one of the metro passengers, Amit Baxi on X, formerly Twitter.

A similar problem was raised by other commuters, who shared their frustration on social media that there were no trains at BKC station for 30 minutes. “The same thing happened yesterday, the train arrived after a 45-minute wait. No communication on when it will arrive” posted @rahool26.

The technical snag pertained to the platform screen door’s opening at Sahar Road station, which was brought to light by the commuters on Tuesday as well. On Monday morning, within a couple of hours of the metro corridor opening to the public, there was a software system related issue reported for 2-3 minutes.

On the glitches, Ashwini Bhide, managing director, of Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC) said every metro corridor faces certain teething problems during the initial days of operations.

“The operation team is also new. Though they are very well trained, the experience is what makes them confident. Our system is designed to be a fully automated system but we are yet to reach there because we did not get that kind of time for testing,” said Bhide.

Adding, “The software is made for an automated system. When they are made to run in a semi-automated mode, such kind of glitches appear. If the train pilot isn’t experienced enough to resolve the glitch, the system itself stops the train. Once the train stops, there will be bunching. It isn’t serious, it is only operational smoothness that the system is learning. These problems will soon be overcome.”

The 12.69 km long first phase of aqua line was inaugurated on Saturday by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.