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The Delhi Metro carries an average of 28 lakh passengers per day, a far cry from the 15 lakh that the detailed project report for the second phase of the urban rail network had projected.

This year, new lines will become operational in the third phase, for which the project report had conjectured a ridership of 18 lakh. As the figures show, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation had underestimated the number of people its trains would carry by a big margin.

Is that the reason DMRC has been slow in adding new coaches to the overcrowded system? "At present, there are 221 trains running, that is, there are 1,352 coaches in the system," says Anuj Dayal, spokesperson for Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.

He adds that prompted by the surge in ridership with the extension into the NCR, the company had placed an order for 420 more coaches.Of these, only 80 have been delivered.

 

Metro claims 221 trains run every day , but in reality, only 198 do. The rest are confined to depots for maintenance. These trains make an average of 2,827 daily trips.The system is expected occasionally to take on extra load.

In August last year, Delhi Metro increased the frequency of trains during off-peak hours after the Delhi government pushed for more trains to accommodate crowds of commuters. This month too, it again increased frequency to cope with the higher demand during the road-rationing fortnight and so the number of trips escalated to 3,192. The impact was immediate: while ridership went up, there were fewer complaints of overcrowding because stations emptied at quicker intervals.

While running extra trains and higher frequency helped moved passengers speedily , these are not options that the corporation is keen to exercise. Any decision on continuing with January's measure to run each train on more daily trips has to be considered carefully

"Running the maximum number of trains has an impact on the maintenance schedules because it leaves little time to carry out proper maintenance of the rolling stock," said a senior Delhi Metro official.

The answer, therefore, is more coaches. But the situation is unlikely to change immediately . The procurement of the rest of the coaches ordered last year will be completed only by December 2017.The induction of the 340 coaches might help, but the needs are already stretched.

"Three trains are currently being converted from four-coach trains to six-coach ones on Line 6 (ITO to Escorts Mujesar) and a fourcoach train is shortly scheduled to be inducted on Line 5 (Inderlok to Mundka)," says Dayal.

The procurement process is slow, admit DMRC officials. The Delhi Metro, which has been trying to tackle the increasing ridership with higher frequency of trains during peak hours, says the conversion of trains with fewer coaches into those with higher carrying capacity depends entirely on the availability of coaches.

How much remains to be done is easily gauged from the fact many lines still carry four-coach trains. Line 1 (Dilshad Garden to Rithala), for instance, has 19 of 29 trains running with four coaches. Line 5 is another corridor with four-coach trains-of the 18 trains in service, 17 are four-coached. The corridors with the maximum number of eight-coach tra ins are the Yellow line (HUDA City Centre to Samaypur Badli) and Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21to NoidaVaishali). While the former has 33 eight-coac ..

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/industry/transportation/railways/delhi-metros-rush-hour-blues-wont-end-before-2017/articleshow/50611006.cms

So will METRO is sufficient for Indian METRO cities to serve public Transport  ???

Why Delhi is having 240 Kms of METRO still gets over crowded ??/

Will  Bangalore  learn the lessons from Delhi and Good things from Mumbai having multi modal Transport like Suburban Rail, BMTC Bus, METRO, Taxi and Mono Rail

I hope Govt officials and Politicans wake up to the mess of Delhi for Bangalore

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I am writing only this because all this going back and forth on almost everything happening in the city bothers me a bit.

No decision is perfect. Speed of decisions and execution matter lot more than making the perfect call in 60-40 type situations. Yes, I practice this (at work), and am not just preaching.

It is sad that collective brains of civil society get drained in different directions. We know it is unrealistic to expect the perfect on all the four counts :

1. Agencies gather requirements from citizens
2. Quick and perfect decisions by agencies
3. Citizens rally around the decisions to review, enhance them
4. And then everyone pitches in to track execution like hawks

What do you do when you have limited resources? Put them on what you think gives best ROI (return on investment). The resource in short supply here is time of active and aware citizens - right? It is the time that you and I 'waste' reading and writing all this, and attending all those meetings and events.

My opinion is that if we pick #4 to be the focus - If we shift even 10% of energy of citizen activists towards tracking of whatever is locked in and decided - we get the best ROI on our times.

Next after #4 should be #1. I would leave #2 and #3 out for now simply because local governance structures are not there yet.

Of course, this is all my personal opinion. But I for sure spend my time ('wasted' here or wherever at the expense of time for family etc) according to the lecture written above.

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 The stress and other health factors are not esaily measurable..but quite important and these get drastically affected by metro I suppose.

Can one reach a place in time?

Why is the Jam so bad?

Why is the road so bad?

Why are they doing the road block/hartal?

etc

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  would leave #2 and #3 for now simply because local governance structures are not there yet.

This reminded me of my customer in Stockholm who cancelled a business meeting to attend to a public consultation session arranged by the municipality who were planning to replace a traffic light junction with a roundabout in her neighborhood. When asked if she was sure her opinion would be accepted, she said no guaruntees but the trust with her local municipality made her confident any reasonable opinion will be accepted for incorporation into the larger plan. Regardless she wont skip it just because she is not sure of the results.

Post this discussion, it appeared pretty self centered to me, when we make statements on this platform that it is a waste of time to have opinions and be heard if it doesnt result in direct action on the ground. It also showed how mature cities take public opinion into account and transparently include public in building their city. There may be juvenile opinions but facts and consequential benefits must be sold to the public.

It is important for city administrators to make #3 a standard practice for any modifications.

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IDS, thanks for this line there "Post this discussion, it appeared pretty self centered to me, when we make statements on this platform that it is a waste of time to have opinions and be heard if it doesnt result in direct action on the ground."

Thinking and acting positively is never a waste of time. When there are 10 suggestions and only 1 decision to make, chances are that 9 will end up feeling disappointed. The succees of constructive crticism is in making the other 9 feel that their opinions provided the diversity that made the decision maker feel good about having lots of choices.

Anyway, this is getting a bit philosophical.

Vinod - sorry if this looks off topic, but endless Metro bickering makes me write all this.

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Delhi metro is also one of the few metros in the world that are profitable. This should be true of other cities like Bengaluru also as -
a) People in Indian cities are not averse to using regular (read not erratic) public transportation
b) Metro is much better (cleaner, quicker, punctual) than existing inadequate modes
(BTW, mandating mass PT system for cities with a population greater than 'x' was one of the suggestions I sent in for the recently solicited suggestions for the MV act)

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The incident narrated by IDS is awe inspiring, i wish more people in our country/city participate during the process of decision making and provide their inputs, rather holding placards after the decision has been made.  Public consultation and public opinion should be a part of decision making by government bodies.  I would go as far saying that may an "Act of parliament" make it mandatory to include public consulatation for any project, and then documents the diverses views of the people, before a decision is made.  Once the decision has been made, just monitor the projects proactively.

@Silkboard: We should branch off from here... and continue....

vinod

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On the Metro there is a due diligence report by the GoK dept known as IDECK so the implications of  such a decision is to be known, please go thru.

The question is between ELRTS ( a 500 pg IL& FS report in 1993-94) and the Namma Metro (a 300 pg DMRC report in Dec 2003) has the consultation and decision making process satisfactoriy evolved. ?

So how can we answer that?

are there any advanced local governance structures to be established for that?

many crores were paifd to the UB group becoz GoK decided to discontinue ELRTS. Of course if the GoK throws public money behind Mtero is it ok to then say we were planning to throw 6500 crs but now when I barely finished 1/4 of the project I need 11,500 crs which is also what the due diligence report in 2004-05 said will happen.

despite the fact that Bangalore has Cholera, chikungunya, malaria and many other public health hazards PT needs 5000 crs more so lets give it ?

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My grand children will be paying back the metro investment and will also try their best to make up the environmental destruction it is causing in bits and pieces but finally, it may be a boon to the burgeoning population - can we stop or postpone development?

CAG report has revealed a few things - have a look at:

http://praja.in/en/discuss/forums/2009/07/cags-rap-delhi-metro-phase-i-ridership-projection

Anyway, I have signed an  'ipetititon' floated by Environment Support Group - may be prajas will be interested - The National Alliance of Peoples Movements, Forum for Better Public Transport, Hyderabad and Environment Support Group, Bengaluru have jointly initiated this petition as a follow up to the Mumbai Consulation on Metro Projects held during June 2009. - link :

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/metroeia/    this petition is addressed to Shri Jairam Ramesh, Minister for Environment....

- Vasanth Mysoremath

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 despite the fact that Bangalore has Cholera, chikungunya, malaria and many other public health hazards PT needs 5000 crs more so lets give it ?

So by not building metro you will solve all the diseases? So you believe the money for metro is being taken from disease control budget? Are these serial - unless we eliminate all diseases we should not lay an inch of rail or road? Sò we can allow proliferation of cars but cant build mass transport? We can grow our population to beyond a billion in the country but want to draw our borders around our homes?

I am waiting for us to grow up.

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I support the need to protect the environment, i have no doubts regarding that.  For example  I would definitely oppose the proposed Gundiya dam project where just to generate a few MW the plan to submerge thousands of acres of virgin forests... I have personally seen the damage done to western ghats where river kali flows by by building the kodasali dam, which just generates paltry MW of electricity gorging on thousands of acres of dense vegetation.  See below a few photos of kodasali dam backwaters.

You see the stumps of the last trees submerged.

Just how beautiful a forest it would have if not for the backwaters created to just store water.

In the case of the metro, we have  to make a few tough choices.  As such any decision will please a few and displease a few.  There is no such thing as a perfect decision.  If a decision made helps  to improve the quality of life for us and the future generation to come, i would stick by it.  Do we have a better choice than the metro presently?  Please propose?

@Public Agenda: Regarding the costs involved, the 6500 cr was approved cost for 33km, and the north-south extension of 9km is around 1650 cr,  which makes a total of 8150 crores.  Present estimates as you said are around 11000 crores by 2012.  I suppose we should take inflation of 5% into account for 6 years.  I am no way defending the cost escalation away from the estimates approved earlier. Im simply trying to calculate a realistic cost...  With a 5 % inflation for 6 years the cost will be around 10100 crores.

Vinod

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The Reddy gang is back in the picture..now supporting the HSRL and announcing that work would start soon..

On the other hand we have Blr IT.in announcement that the mother of all IT destination will be built at Devanahalli..and then we have the Airbus setup planned and other industries..

Govt made mistakes of not building proper transport infra for ITPL and the EC regions..will they fumble here again?

Wouldnt a metro make a lot of sense than the HSRL?

BMRC Plase II any way is connecting EC to Yelahanka..shouldnt we be extending that to devanahalli and make a monorail link to BIA from say the clover loop jn??

No No..we will have a elevated road on NH7..expressway to BIA..metro to yelahanka..HSRL to BIA..aint it cool!

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While the DMRC is correct to point out the problems associated with increasing the frequency of the services, what is NOT clear is what effort is being put to find solutions to those problems!

It is easy for me to say this, because I am not the one running the service. At the same time, I would expect DMRC folks to be open enough to ask for potential solutions to their maintenance bottleneck. It is very much possible that IR or London Underground or the Japanese, have faced similar problems and solved it. 

DMRC is largely funded by the Central Govt., and so are many of the other Metro Rail projects all over the country. All the learnings of DMRC, and of other Metro lines, in solving problems, should be consolidated into ONE central database, and available to be viewed by all the Metro projects - current and future.

One example that I can think of is the 4/6/8 coach issue per service. When does the respective Metro corporation start ordering additional coaches? What is the impact of the delay? What is the advantage of ordering X number of coaches to be delivered over Y number of years? Why not order such that P number of coaches to be delivered per year for the next 10-15 years? 

Another example that comes to mind is what is the investment of the respective METRO corporation into solving the last-mile connectivity issue? Is someone assigned to work with the local municipal authorities to create & execute plans for each line/station? Even if not, what are the learnings/best practices on this from City A vs. City B? What are the best practices that should be in the design of all current/future projects - parking space, cycle rentals (extending the low carbon footprint), TfL like bodies.

The key to the effectiveness of such a database would be a standardised classification, one that helps designers, problem solvers, to find good solutions, as well as share their own

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Having a problem of plenty is desirable..however we need to see it a lil more closely:

Below are ridership from 2014 August:

So as can be seen the only two lines which are very busy is Line 2 and Line 3/4, that is the Gurgaon and Noida lines. The other 3 lines ridership is a trickle.

So the 6/8 coaches are also being added to the 2 busy lines.  Rest are still happy with 3, where even those run empty.

Noida does not have a direct rail line connected to Delhi, but Gurgaon has IR connectivity. A commuter rail line with much higher capacity would have been ideal to address mass transport with fraction of money.

Alas, our planners are totally blind to practicality..and are happy with jargons!

Just like the Bullet Train decission..

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@mandayamr - you have stated "Another example that comes to mind is what is the investment of the respective METRO corporation into solving the last-mile connectivity issue? Is someone assigned to work with the local municipal authorities to create & execute plans for each line/station?"

The answer to that perhaps lies in "now that ZipGo has been allowed into providing airport connectivity, shouldn't every Koramangala, Whitefield, Electronic city etc, and more importantly Namma Metro, too be having shuttle services (provided by the likes of ZipGo) feeding the Big-10 services (where BMTC can concentrate its efforts)?" - to read the full blog-post, click here.

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@Srinidhi - I don't think the 2014 Delhi Metro ridership figures can be cited any more. If I understand correctly, particularly during the odd-even experimentation days, all routes were as much jam-packed as the Mumbai local trains. As such, Metro very much has its relevance, particularly in mega-cities of our kind.

Well, whatever, that doesn't detract from the fact that Commuter Rail (Namma Railu) linking the city with the town-ships all around should perhaps have been accorded a highrer or at least an equal priority. Undoubtedly, Namma Railu provides for the most cost-effective way out of the city's congestion and related problems.

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