New control centre for metro

The Delhi metro started its second operations control centre (OCC), which would monitor Phase II train operations, on Sunday. This second nerve centre of the Metro is located right in the heart of the city — Connaught Place.

The Delhi metro started its second operations control centre (OCC), which would monitor Phase II train operations, on Sunday. This second nerve centre of the Metro is located right in the heart of the city — Connaught Place.

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The new centre was started at Metro Bhavan, the corporate headquarters of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation situated near Barakhamba Road. It would control and supervise train operations, monitor passenger movement and oversee the fare collection and emergency systems.

To begin with, the second control centre has taken over the control of train operations on Line 3 (Indraprastha- Dwarka Sector 9). It will also control train movement on upcoming lines of Phase II - Indraprastha-Noida, Inderlok-Mundka and Central Secretariat-Badarpur when these lines open in the coming months.

Till Saturday night, Line 3 was being controlled by DMRC’s existing operating centre at Shastri Park. The existing OCC at Shastri Park, which became operational on December 24, 2002 will now control train movement on Line 1 (Dilshad Garden-Rithala) and Line 2 (Jahangirpuri-Central Secretariat), apart from the Central Secretariat- Gurgaon line when it opens next year.

The shifting of control was done overnight on a war footing in the fewhours available between end of train movement at 11:00 pm on Saturday and the running of the pilot train at 4:45 am on Sunday so that passenger movement on Line 3 was not disrupted even for a minute, said DMRC spokesman Anuj Dayal.

A new TETRA radio system for Line 3 was set up at the new centre, which is an exact replica of the one at Shastri Park, to ensure that there was no disruption of services during the actual shifting. This Radio System shall cover all the new Lines of DMRC, including Line 3 and also act as a back up.