As the crowd inside ladies compartments in the city's suburban system increases, the question is whether there is a need to increase the number of coaches for women in trains. While women across the travelling spectrum that dna spoke to said a resounding 'yes', city railway officials said it is too early to take a call on that.
Firstly, for some inexplicable reason, neither Central or Western railways has done a serious gender-based profiling of their travelling database to find out the exact number of women travelling in local trains.
Secondly, with passenger numbers on CR and WR increasing at an annual rate of 3%, officials said it is best to maintain status quo because any change in train composition could bring in more trouble than good.
At the moment, on CR, every 12-coach train has 1,161 seats of which 245 are reserved for women, ie 21%. Of these, 24 are in the first class compartments, which is a paltry 2%.
In a nine-coach train, 139 seats out of 817 are reserved for women, or 17%. Of these, 13 are first class seats, the percentage once again being a minuscule one.
WR's 80 rakes comprise 966 coaches. Of this, 242 coaches have some or whole of it as ladies section. In percentage terms, it is 25, but officials said the figure should be closer to 22% of all seats on WR being reserved for women. A back-of-the-envelope estimate of women passengers on WR's suburban system puts the number around 17%.
Speaking to dna, WR chief spokesperson Sharat Chandrayan said, “As the suburban system gradually shifts to 15-coach trains, the number of women coaches will also increase. However, at the moment, it would be impossible to increase the coaches or seats because the system is already very congested.”
Officials from both CR and WR said the prime reason why women might be feeling their trains are extremely crowded is that the normal pattern of commuting among women shows that a vast majority are travelling for work and tend to travel during the conventional morning and evening peak hours.
“That's why a lot of women's compartments are less crowded during non-peak hours. But even during this time the general compartments are crowded so it would be unfair to increase the number of ladies seats at the moment because it would be at the expense of men's seats,” said a senior CR official.
Incidentally, both CR and WR have eight ladies special trains each on their networks.
Where are the women TCs?
One of the prime reasons why women have a more torrid commute is actually due to the lack of adequate women ticket checkers. Officials said male TCs generally keep off women's compartments leaving it at the mercy of urchins, beggars, vagabonds, stunt boys and other sorts of travelling nuisance. It also increases chances of commuters with second class tickets boarding first class coaches.
For example, out of the 1,020 TCs on CR's Mumbai division, just about 60 are women. “There needs to be a greater representation of women TCs to ensure they keep combing the coaches and keep unwanted elements out,” agreed a CR official.
Commuterspeak
The ideal thing would be to increase the number of women's coaches and, if that cannot be done, then some out-of-the-box solution should be implemented. It gets very crowded in the ladies compartments, especially when the trains are running late
Rosemary Chaturvedi, Bhandup resident
The authorities keep talking about how it is impossible to include ladies special trains in the morning and evening peak hours. My suggestion would be to run at least a couple of specials where half of the train could be for women and half for men during peak hours. It would clear the rush of women commuters and at the same time won't increase the crowds in the general compartments in the trains that follow.
Richa Padte, Thane resident
The numbers
CR
In a 12-coach train...
1,161 total seats
221 ladies general seats
24 ladies first-class seats
678 male general seats
164 male first-class seats
12 seats for senior citizens
38 seats for handicapped
24 seats for luggage
WR
80 total rakes
78 12-coach ones
2 15-coach ones
966 total coaches
242 women's coaches
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