The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation should take a lesson from its Mumbai counterpart: Instead of fighting the problem of overcrowding and barging, it should prepare passengers for a systematic and amicable way of boarding and de-boarding trains
This writer has been using the services of the Delhi Metro for local travel whenever he visits Delhi, with a hope to contribute his bit to mitigate road traffic congestion and air pollution in the national capital. During his travels, it was not uncommon for him to witness the visual horror of queued-up passengers suddenly becoming a mob as soon as the doors of the metro coach would open up. People barge into the coaches, not even allowing the the passengers to alight.
The barging continues to the level that the passengers cling on to the footboard even though there is no place for them to go inside, not allowing the doors to close and delaying the departure of the train. For easy understanding, this regular and horrible phenomenon of the Delhi Metro is christened as ‘barging’. The ‘barging’ occurs regularly at many stations but more at transit stations like Mandi House, Central Secretariat and Rajiv Chowk. The most horrible experience for a traveller in the Delhi Metro is when he has to face the ‘barging’ himself, especially when he is forced back into the coach in a station where he has to alight.
Recently, when this writer travelled in the Delhi Metro from Mandi House to Central Secretariat, to meet a top railway official, he could not get down at Central Secretariat, in spite of the fact that the metro in which he was travelling did not carry crush load of passengers at that point of time. However, he was fortunate enough to get down at the next station, Khan Market to get back to Central Secretariat.
But this is not the case all the time, as experienced metro travellers have witnessed. The writer could not reach in time for his appointment and had to apologise for the delay for no fault of his.
It is not that the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation is sitting idle on the issue of ‘barging’ and crush loading. The DMRC has been taking umpteen measures to overcome the overcrowding in metro services, ranging from introducing eight-coach train in place of six-coach train, higher frequency during peak hours, easing the congestion in transit stations by introducing new routes such as Mandi House to Central Secretariat via Janpath, gallery in Rajiv Chowk, continued purchase of additional rolling stock to increase the number of services, etc.
As a recent measure to solve the problem of crush loading, the DMRC has proposed a tweak office timings for both Government and private sectors. To tackle the problem, the DMRC has also employed security guards in some stations. However, the proposed plan is not working to the desired level and, hence, the DMRC admits that it is rare that the en-boarding passengers allow the de-boarding passengers to alight. That is to say, given a ridership of 25 lakh passengers per day, 1.25 lakh passengers are not allowed to de-board at the intended stations.
For every 20 trips, a person makes in the DMRC, in at least in one trip he will be pushed back into the coach while he is de-boarding. This is not an exaggerated figure. There is no doubt that barging is an outcome of overcrowding. However, overcrowding need not result in ‘barging’. Overcrowding is due to a mismatch between supply and demand, and barging is a failure to solve this mismatch systematically and amicably.
If the DMRC thinks that by addressing the problem of overcrowding, barging can be eliminated, it is mistaken, as it is hard to ensure a crowd-free public transit system. For any public transport system to succeed, it should have enough ridership, which results in acceptable and reasonable amount of crowding. In fact, the current ridership of the Delhi metro is much lower than its forecasted ridership and its true real potential.
For 194 km of route length, had the DMRC realised its full potential ridership with concerted efforts of the Delhi Municipal Corporation and the Delhi Transport Corporation creating the necessary ecosystems for more people to use the Delhi metro, ridership would have exceeded 75 lakh a day, which will be thrice of its ridership today. Moreover, if the DMRC comes out with its phase III and phase IV routes, total DMRC route length will exceed 450 km. This will make the current situation worse. Given this, can the DMRC continue to ignore the problem of ‘barging’IJ
With just 11.4 km in operation, the Mumbai Metro carries about 2.5 lakh passengers every day. Crowding in the Mumbai Metro during peak hours is no less than the peak hour traffic in the Delhi Metro in some stations. The Mumbai Metro too has transit points at Andheri and Ghatkopar, where passengers move between suburban rail and metro rail.
Surprisingly, although passengers swarm in thousands from the suburban stations, they stand in very long queues and board the train only to the level of reasonable crowding after allowing the de-boarding passengers to alight. At times, the passengers have to wait as much as 10 to 15 minutes and skip two to three trains before they take their ride.
It is not that Mumbaikars are more disciplined than Delhiites. If it is so, passenger discipline in Mumbai suburban system would have been as good as the Mumbai Metro. The systematic, fair and amicable way of boarding and de-boarding in the Mumbai Metro cannot be seen in the Mumbai suburban trains.
The disciplined way of boarding and alighting in the Mumbai Metro is due to the painstaking efforts of the Mumbai Metro authorities in training passengers from day one to scrupulously follow queue discipline and oblige the security guard when he says ‘no’ to boarding. The most critical component in the harmonious entry and exist in crowded metro is to mentally prepare the passengers to wait for their turn to en-board after waiting for considerable time.
The Delhi Metro has been a pioneer in many ways for other metros. However, the Delhi Metro has to address the problem of peaceful entry (exist) in (out) to (of) coaches by all means including penalty for those who vitiate the travel atmosphere sooner than later, irrespective of the level of crowding.
The DMRC should not shy away from taking cues from the Mumbai metro and other metros in this regard. The Delhi Metro had conducted customer satisfactory survey between August 24 and September 1 this year. Perhaps, it is time to address the problem of barging so that the passengers who stay away from metro till now to avoid barging will also start using Delhi Metro.
(The author is a doctorate in public systems from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad)