Change in seating arrangements: An issue to stand up for?

In late October, the Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC), a railway undertaking constituted for the planning and implementation of the Railway component of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP), had sought comments and suggestions of the city’s suburban train commuters regarding seating arrangements in the local compartments.

It had specifically asked commuters if they would prefer more standing space and longitudinally aligned seats, with their backs facing the windows, in local compartments.

More than a month after the comments and suggestions were invited, it seems commuters are not so enthused about the idea. Since, only 106 of them have sent their responses to the MRVC about it. According to a senior official of the MRVC, 66 replies are generally in favour of a change in the seating arrangement in suburban train compartments, while 40 have clearly described what kind of changes they would prefer. There was one respondent who even suggested doing away with all seats.

The official said that some of the ideas suggested by the commuters are interesting but, in the context of Mumbai, difficult to implement and sometimes, even impractical. Take, for example, the idea of a respondent who suggested that for shorter journeys, there should be less seats and more standing space in the suburban train compartments while for longer journeys, there should be the conventional seating arrangements. The officials explained that since there are no separate EMUs run according to distance, this idea is not feasible.

When asked if the MRVC plans to further pursue the idea, managing director of the MRVC, PC Sehgal, cited the lack of public support. A 9-car train has a capacity of carrying 2,628 passengers — 876 seating and 1,752 standing.

While, a 12-car train has a seating capacity of 1,168 and 2,336 for people standing. The longitudinal arrangement is considered to enable ferrying of at least 20% more people standing than the existing capacity and increase the overall capacity of transporting commuters.