The Delhi Metro will run 70 additional trips daily across the city during the trial run of Delhi Government’s odd-even scheme. This is in sharp contrast to the claims made by the AAP Government that around 1,000 extra trips daily will be made by the Delhi Metro between January 1 and 15. Also, as opposed to the earlier announcement of 6,000 additional buses to be put on the roads, only 3,000 of them are now expected to operate for the two weeks when the restriction is imposed on the movement of private vehicles.
In a Press conference to announce preparations being made by the city Government to make the odd-even plan successful, Transport Minister Gopal Rai had said the Delhi Metro will increase frequency. “Delhi Metro currently makes 2,000+ trips per day. But between January 1 and 15, when the even-odd scheme will be implemented, Metro will make 3,000+ trips per day,” Rai had said.
However, according to the statistics of the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), the Delhi Metro already makes more than 3,100 trips daily. The total number of trips made by the Delhi Metro daily had crossed the 3,000 mark in September when the daily trips were increased to 3,079 from 2,946. The number of daily trips was further increased to 3,122 in November.
According to the DMRC, while the frequency of the Delhi Metro will be further increased in January, but only 70 additional trips daily will be made compared to November and Decem-ber, 2015. This will take the total number of daily trips to 3,192.
In fact, even if the daily trips to be taken in January, 2016 is compared with the number of trips that the Delhi Metro ran during the similar period in January 2015, the difference comes to merely 365 as a total of 2,827 trips were being taken on a daily basis in January 2015.
On the other hand, though the Delhi Government had earlier announced that 6,000 additional buses, including school buses and chartered buses, will be put on the roads for smooth functioning of the public transport system and to bear the extra load during the implementation of odd-even scheme, only 2,700 such buses have been registered yet.
“Over 2,700 buses have been already registered and 300 more will be registered in a day or two. Earlier, we had announced that 6,000 additional buses will be pressed into services but after two-wheelers were given exemption, we arrived at the conclusion that 3,000 buses will be enough. These additional buses will cater to 15 to 16 lakh passengers daily,” said Gopal Rai.
Meanwhile, the DMRC has assured that it will work on its optimum potential to support the Government in making the even-odd scheme successful. “DMRC will be using 198 trains daily to achieve these (3,192) trips. The Delhi Metro will be pressing into service the maximum number of trains possible operationally during this period keeping only the essential maintenance reserve. It will also deploy additional shifts of guards/Customer Facilitation Agents (CFA) at major Metro stations to help and guide commuters. Additional manpower will be deployed to handle the increased load on the ticketing system. lines and stations will be monitored by control room and action to be taken to ensure that crowd is not built up at booking points, TVMs and security frisking points,” Executive Director (Corporate Communications) of DMRC Anuj Dayal said in a statement.
Under the odd-even scheme, the Government hopes that around 10 lakh private vehicles will go off the roads between January 1 and 15 as only even or odd-numbered vehicles will be allowed to ply on the roads on alternate days.
However, as The Pioneer had earlier reported, 25 categories of vehicles have been exempted from the vehicle rationing restrictions which include women-only vehicles (or having children up to 12 years of age), vehicles with persons with disabilities onboard, CNG vehicles, electric, hybrid vehicles, emergency vehicles and enforcement vehicles apart from vehicles of the VVIPs. While the four-wheeler private vehicles entering Delhi from nearby States will also come under the scheme, two-wheelers have been, so far, will be allowed to ply.