WR ensures safer night travel

There is good news for women commuters travelling at night on the Western line.

Western Railway authorities have finalised a mechanism where security personnel — either from the Railway Protection Force (RPF) or the state-run railway police — will be present in one of the ladies’ compartments after 10pm.

The personnel would be deputed exclusively for that train till it finishes its quota of services at 1.30am,  and then start again in the morning, till 6am. If all goes according to plan, this system is expected to be implemented by the end of this week. “We are coordinating with the railway police to get this done and we believe it would be of great help to the women commuters on WR’s suburban line in terms of security,” said Mahesh Kumar, general manager, WR.

Another change that WR authorities are bringing about is upgrading the way the RPF helpline 1311 works. Currently, the number is connected to the RPF control room which, on receiving a call, forwards the message to the nearest RPF post.

“We are linking this helpline to the train control room as well. This will ensure that instead of help coming from the next post — which could be several stations away — it could be routed through the next railway station itself. The train control room will alert the stationmaster. It saves a lot of time and also increases the number of people who can respond to an emergency,” said Kumar.