In what would be, perhaps, the first-of-its kind in the history of the national transporter, the Ministry of Railways has decided to conduct Train Operations’ Audit (TOA) — aiming to address the perennial problem of the late running of trains across the country. The TOA is part of the Ministry’s slew of measures planned to improve the overall performance of the transport behemoth including arresting the decline in passenger and freight traffic.
The Ministry has joined hands with IIT-Bombay to conduct a phase-wise (zonal) study of the operations of passenger as well as goods trains. In the first phase, the IIT-Bombay will submit a report on the worst-affected Delhi-Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai section, which accounts for over 90 per cent of late running status of trains of the total punctuality figure of about 75 per cent.
Sources said the IIT-Railways partnership will look into the aspect of different cycles. “It will be explored if in one cycle only passenger trains and in the remaining part only freight trains can be operated. For example, during day time only passenger trains can be operated in regions of congestion and at night, only goods trains and vice versa,” they added.
The Railways has been tasked to put on track faster trains in some sections in the next couple of years and this can only be after “strengthening time management” of train operations, which is the biggest failure in the system, officials pointed out.
At present, Railways has been able to meet only 75 per cent punctuality on an average with the worst performer being the North Central Railways (NCR) and East Central Railways (ECR). They have a dismal record of less than 25 per cent punctuality maintenance.
The PMO had sought explanation from the Railway Minister over trains running late after it received complaints by the passengers. The complaints were forwarded to the Railways Ministry and it was asked to follow the schedule and fix the problems so that trains are on time.
Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu was in for a rude shock to know that the punctuality figures used to be fudged by the officials to maintain it at 99 per cent even as there were complaints galore about incessant delays of express trains, including Rajdhanis and Shatabdis.
The Railways then did a month-long exercise by stationing top railway officials between the most choked Allahabad-Mughalsarai section in March-April. But the crucial ECR, NCR and Northern Railway zones expressed their inability to meet punctuality with the existing infrastructure and resources.
A senior Railways official said that across the zones, availability of line Capacity on High Density Network (HDN) and other important routes is to be taken into account. “It would be seen that most of the Zonal Railways are in the range of optimal and higher than optimal utilisation of line capacity. Further, 161 out of total 247 sections, which are 65 per cent of the sections, are running at 100 per cent or above line capacity on HDN routes,” said an official.
The IIT and Railways’ subsidiary (RITES) will work together to study bottleneck areas and devise means to ensure trains run faster on the “existing infrastructure”.
The TOA is the reason why the annual railway timetable, which is revised beginning July every year, has been delayed this year for couple of months. The Railways is planning for a complete overhaul of the timetable, especially trains operating in the Northern (mostly affected by fog), North Central and East Central Zone. The new timetable will be in place from September 1 or a month later.
Besides the operations aspect, the Ministry is also likely to rope in IIT-Delhi to devise a marketing strategy to improve the declining percentage of passengers and freight traffic. While passenger volume has registered a dip of 3.31 per cent, freight declined to about 7 per cent. “It has become a major concern for the Railways. Hence, we are considering marketing our value and asset’s size. The idea is to win back those who have left and preferred roadways and other alternate transportation,” said the official.