BENGALURU: Following repeated complaints from the people residing in the vicinity of Metro stations, the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) has now decided to tone down the decibel levels in its 40 stations and trains.
The issue of disturbance caused to the public had generated a bit of controversy recently with Vijayanagar police even taking a Station Controller to the police station on November 4 following a complaint.
A top official told Express, “We have reduced the noise caused due to opening and closing of train doors by 30 percent. This has been done for all trains running from 5 am to 11 pm for the past one week,” he said.
Due to frequent complaints from residents, BMRCL has also decided to reduce the decibel levels of recorded announcements at Metro stations after 10 pm, he added. “The announcements are done in public interest. It is very important that they are audible. Due to less crowd inside stations and reduced traffic on streets at late night, they sound louder to the residents. So, after 10 pm, we have now instructed all station controllers to reduce the volume,” the official said.
Meanwhile, BMRCL continues to have problems with its noise levels. The volume of a Swacch Bharat Campaign advertisement on a display television inside a train blared as it was running from Nagasandra to Yelachenahalli early on Saturday. “An engineer was rushed to the Sampige Square Mantri Mall metro station to fix the issue as soon as the train reached there,” he said.
Train Operators’ Training Adds To Woes
When asked about the reason for the sudden surge in complaints, another top official said that a new batch of Train Operators (TOs) was undergoing training for driving trains along the existing routes. “We can only train them between 12.00 midnight and 4 am as trains are running during the day. In the interest of passenger safety, we need to provide them live training before they begin driving. This cannot be avoided,” he said. The official said that the training for this batch had been completed a week ago. “A new batch of 15 TOs will begin training after three weeks. Until then, the noise caused by chugging of trains and opening and closing of doors post-midnight will not be heard,” he added.