BENGALURU: In a bid to reduce waiting time during peak morning hours for commuters of Green Line who want to switch over to the Purple Line, the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (BMRCL) had recently tweaked timings of a couple of its short loop trains that run between Kempe Gowda Metro and Baiyappanahalli Metro stations. With the new timings helping to reduce the rush on platform, they will be made permanent for the trains.
The Green Line running between Nagasandra and Yelachenahalli is fast catching up in terms of ridership with the Purple Line that runs between Baiyappanahalli and Mysuru Road. During morning hours, heavy traffic is witnessed towards the Baiyappanahalli end from Green Line commuters, which made BMRCL introduce short loop trains in this direction from June 2017.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Executive Director of Operations and Maintenance,
A S Shankar said that seven short loop trains run between 8 am and 11 am between Kempe Gowda and Baiyappanahalli stations with stoppages at all stations enroute. They are empty trains when they reach K G station and depart jam-packed.
"We have changed the timings of a train that departs from KG station regularly at 10.05 am to 10.08 am and another train that departs at 10.18 am to 10.20 am. This is done to ensure that commuters from the Green Line do not have to wait for long at Platform One for these short loop trains," he said. Those coming in the Green Line trains alight on Platforms 3 and 4 and come down to Platform one to take the Purple Line. "The impact is clearly seen. The congestion and long queues at Platform one during mornings has definitely come down," Shankar said.
It was initially carried out on an experimental basis. "Due to the successful outcome of it, we have decided to make these timings permanent," another official said. BMRCL Managing Director Mahendra Jain said, "We want to ensure minimum waiting time during the change from North-South to East-West Line. It is clearly a quicker changeover now."
When it comes to revenue, the Green Line is now beating the Purple Line. As per statistics supplied by BMRCL, the Green Line has helped it earn a little more than the Purple Line during the last three months. "It earned `41.52 crore as fare earnings from January to March 2018 out of a total fare earnings of `82.58 crore. Out of the 3,12,05,270 ridership registered by both lines during the first quarter of this year, the Green Line alone had 1,43,36,056 commuters.
Tests on 6-car train
The Commissioner of Metro Rail Safety of Southern Circle and top Metro officials were on board the first 6-car Metro train from late Friday night to early Saturday morning carrying out numerous tests.“The train was operated at 80 kmph and it went along all Metro routes,” said Mahendra Jain, BMRCL MD. “Nearly 100 of us were on board from 10.30 pm to 3.30 am carrying out various tests and everything went well.”