Railway wants your opinion on how to improve local train service

Mumbai got its new trains and additional rail corridors with a massive funding from the World Bank under the Mumbai Urban Transport Project, but the woes of the city’s rail commuters do not seem to wane. Suburban trains are still crowded, infrastructure is still falling short, and commuters are still complaining.
To find a way out, the railway and the World Bank have now decided to ask the harried commuter himself what can be done best to improve the city’s rail network, give better connectivity and ease commuting woes.
“The commuters who travel every day know the best, and hence, we have decided to go back to them. The changes suggested by commuters will be taken into account while finalising the next phase of the World Bank project,” said PC Sehgal, managing director of the Mumbai Railway Vikas Corporation (MRVC).
“We will tell this to the World Bank officials, who will be arriving in Mumbai on October 20 to launch the MUTP-2A project,” Sehgal told DNA.
“We will conduct this commuter survey in co-ordination with the World Bank team in January 2011 and set up a forum for Mumbaikars to respond to,” Sehgal added.
While the World Bank-funded Mumbai Urban Transport Project-1 (MUTP-1) is a mega infrastructure rail and road upgrade project for the city worth Rs4,500 crore under which new trains, rail corridors and road bridges are being built, MUTP-II is a Rs5,300-crore project to exclusively upgrade the rail network.
MUTP-II will be formally launched next month and a key team of World Bank officials will be in the city to review the key aspects of its progress between October 20 and 22.
The MRVC is coordinating the projects for Indian Railways and it has now prepared a concept plan for MUTP-III.
“If we find feasible suggestions from commuters, we can definitely include them in MUTP-III, which is being planned out,” Sehgal said.
While MUTP-1 and II had been planned according to a feasibility survey conducted by M/S Atkins in the early 90s, MUTP-III has been drafted by a MRVC team.
This is probably the first time that the railways is inviting commuter suggestions for such a large infrastructure project, which includes setting up additional rail corridors and tweaking rail alignments. Earlier, instances of the railways conducting such public surveys for policy-making decisions have been at a smaller scale. For example, the MRVC conducted a survey on the colour of the new train, on complaints of commuters on new trains and even whether they wanted air-conditioned trains.
According to a concept note, the MUTP-III includes extension of harbour line from Goregaon to Borivli, third and fourth line between Virar and Dahanu, fifth and sixth line between Borivli and Virar and a new suburban line along Virar-Vasai-Diva-Panvel.

Soon, locals will give weather updates

You can keep yourself updated on city matters as you travel in the locals. The railway plans to experiment using the LED (light-emitting diode) scrollers inside the new coaches for multiple use, such as flashing weather updates and public service messages, and also putting them to commercial use.
At present, these scrollers indicate the approaching stations and other messages. If the trials undertaken by WR are successful, commuters will be able to see additional use of the scrollers.
The railways have various options to put them to public benefit by using them to inform commuters about traffic diversions and weather, and flash public service messages and advertisements.
“These scrollers can be put to use for much more than one can think of, and there are nearly 70 lakh eyeballs that would see them. It would be a great hit if they can also be put to commercial use,” a senior divisional railway official said.
He added that the WR had taken trial runs with features such as weather updates and temperature readings. The railway had already added a few messages such as the one that promotes the railway smart card and warns against trespassing.
“If we intend to put them to commercial use and other such purposes, the technical functioning of these scrollers has to be of high quality in all seasons and we are working on it,” he added.
The LED scrollers are a new addition to public transport in Mumbai and even the new BEST buses, funded by the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission, have such scrollers.
“Once we work on a policy, we can always alert commuters on public transport modes through messages and updates,” another official said.
The new violet suburban trains have been bought under the Rs4,500-crore phase-I of the Mumbai Urban Transport Project and introduced since 2007.