Metro trains to have rosters

The introduction of six-coach trains by the Delhi Metro had initially come as a huge breather for thousands of commuters. There is, however, a flip side that leaves several stations, especially inter-change ones, in a state of chaos and confusion.

The introduction of six-coach trains by the Delhi Metro had initially come as a huge breather for thousands of commuters. There is, however, a flip side that leaves several stations, especially inter-change ones, in a state of chaos and confusion.

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With no prior information if the next train is a six-coach or four-coach one, commuters often queue up at the fag end of platforms, expecting a six-coach train. But if the train has only four coaches, they often fail to enter that overcrowded train. A number of times, they are pushed into the train by the Metro guards.

“This is a real problem,” admit Delhi Metro officials. They are now planning to prepare a roster of the four-coach and six-coach trains. This status will be displayed on the information boards and proper announcements about these trains will be made too.

“This arrangement would help make the commuters aware of the number of coaches in the next train. This will help commuters to position themselves accordingly,” said Vikas Kumar, general manager (Operations), Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

The DMRC has also been working to put an advanced signalling technology in place on line 2 (Gurgaon-Jahangirpuri) so that trains stop at fixed places and commuters can board trains without any hassles, said a DMRC spokesperson. This signal upgradation has already been carried out on line 3 (Noida-Dwarka). “All these arrangements would be in place within a month or so,” said a source.

A year ago, Delhi Metro had increased the frequency of trains to 2.5 minutes on these corridors during peak hours and introduced six-coach trains to cater to a growing number of commuters.

Presently about 40 six-coach trains run on line 3 while 49 such trains run on line 2. Only four six-coach trains run on line 1 (Dilshad Garden-Rithala) while there’s just one such train for line 6 (Central Secretariat-Badarpur).