Suresh Prabhu wants to know reason behind over-crowding in Mumbai locals

Even as railway minister Suresh Prabhu announces the setting up of a committee to find out the reason for over-crowding in the suburban system, and the subsequent deaths, several officials and commuters have called it a futile exercise.

"Why does the railway minister need a committee to tell him why Mumbai's suburban locals are so crowded. The number of people in Mumbai are increasing by the day but the number of trains remain the same; and travel is still predominantly in the CST-Churchgate direction in the morning and towards the suburbs in the evening. What extra will a committee tell Mr Prabhu," asked Bhandup resident Manish Chaturvedi.

The officialdom is in agreement. "For years the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC) has been making plans of new lines, the railways has been studying crowding and then what comes out of it? Nothing more than a nice report which neither the state or the railways has any plans to implement. So what will a new committee do," asked a senior official.

Peak-hour madness
A survey carried out by the MRVC a couple of years ago threw up some startling numbers, like how during the morning peak hour (8:30am-9:30am), there are 5,560 people inside a 12-coach train when the ideal capacity is 3,522, an overloading of almost 58 per cent. A slow train during the morning peak carried around 4,182 passengers, an overloading of 18 per cent. During the evening peak, the highest crowd in a train is 5,568, the overloading reaming at 58 per cent. A slow train will have around 4,573 passengers, an overload of 29 per cent. A train's ideal capacity of 3,522 is found by assuming that for every seat in the train - which is 1,174 - there will two people standing. This means overloading of anything above 15 per cent is inhuman.

Overall, between 8:30am-9:30am, there is a whopping 1,43,690 people in trains moving from Dadar to Elphinstone. During the evening peak hour (between 6pm-7pm), the crowd between Dadar-Matunga is a crushing 1,60,633. These, officials agreed, are figures that clearly show that the dominant travel pattern is still concentrated during peak hours and the emphasis should be on increasing services during these two times. "But with little chances of pushing through more trains during the peak hours, having new lines is the only solution," said an official.

The problem of project delays
The common refrain among the bureaucracy about crowding is that it would reduce once newer lines are added. In Mumbai, the past two decades have not been the most assuring if one sees the railways' performance with adding capacity. The plan to have a 3rd line between Kalyan and Kasara was on the drawing board for the past one decade, got approved just a couple of years ago and in the past one year CR has managed to put out work orders worth Rs140 crore for the Rs600 crore project. The Preliminary Engineering-cum-Traffic survey for the Kalyan-Karjat 3rd line was done early last year. Since then, nothing has moved on a project which will take at least a decade to complete. Similar is the lethargy on the 6th line between Mumbai Central and Borivli and the missing 5th line link between Mahim and Santa Cruz (the latter is completed but stalled by people living along the alignment). "Every single Mumbai project must have a timeline of 3-5 years. Beyond it, the project is useless as the crowd surge would have made it redundant," said officials.

Longer trains, new technology
One of the surest ways to reduce crowding in trains is to extend the length of trains from 12-coach to 15-coach. While both WR and CR have a few
15-coach trains on the fast corridor of their networks, having all trains upgraded to 15-coach is at least a couple of decades away. "The entire signalling will have to change, platforms and stabling lines have to be extended. In short, it calls for a total overhaul of the system which doesn't look like happening any time soon," agreed an official.

The other bet is new technology, like under-slung traction motors to increase the capacity inside coaches. With four motors in every 12-coach train and five in every 15-coach train, more than one coach in a 12-coach train and almost two coaches in a 15-coach train are taken up by these motors. "It is a waste of capacity and in a system like Mumbai, where every bit of infrastructure has to be used to negate the massive crowds, it's completely unacceptable. It is imperative that local trains adopt a technology where their motors are arranged in the under-body of the rake, known in railway lingo as under-slung mounting. It will free up space in local trains by anything between 12% and 15%," said an official.

The way forward for locals in Mumbai, said these officials, was a take-off on the High Speed Diesel Electric Multiple Unit being currently built by the Integral Coach Factory in Chennai. "This train will be capable of running at high speeds of 176kmph during tests and 160kmph during normal operations because of a mechanism called the Fully Suspended Traction Motor. It is a mechanism that will allow the train to run at very high speed and it is the one that can be used for Mumbai's locals as well," said an official.

Staggered office timings
It was an idea railway minister Prabhu spoke about during a press interaction in January this year. However, officials almost unanimously called it impractical and impossible. "You cannot expect a city to change its timings. Mumbai for over 100 years had its commercial areas in the southern tip. That couldn't be changed after all these years; how does the minister expect timings of travel of commoners to change," asked an official. Officials said staggered office timings is a phenomenon that could come naturally as digital technology makes workplaces connected and seamless and also brings about a larger 'work from anywhere' culture.