Sub: Entry Exit Process in Delhi Metro.
Sanjeev Goyal
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DWARKA FORUM Dwarka Ki Awaaz (Regn No. S-63070) (A Welfare Association of Residents & RWA's / CGHS Representatives of Dwarka Sub-City)
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Regd. Office: 720, Pocket-1, Sector-14, Dwarka, New Delhi - 110078 |
Phone No. 011-20514195 E-mail: dwark...@gmail.com |
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No. SKG/DMRC/014 dated 7 May 2015
Sh Vainkaya Naidu,
Minister of Urban Development,
30, Aurangzeb Road, New Delhi-110 001.
Tele-fax : 011-23019387 & 23019388 e-mail : minist...@gov.in
Sub: Entry Exit Process in Delhi Metro.
Dear Sir,
Delhi Metro has been doing a wonderful job for Delhite constantly on several counts. It has greatly reduced the travelling woes and provided a cheap, comfortable & fast means of transportation. But, in whole metro spectrum there is one painful point and that is unregulated entry & exit into coaches particularly at junctions. All the efforts done by DMRS in this regard have gone waste. At times it acquires the shape of short time small unregulated mob ready to crush passengers.
The issue is to regulate entry & exit. With increase in traffic boarding & de-boarding in Metro cars, specially, at junctions has become a nightmare. During peak hours even young people find it very tough to dare the entry/exit in coach, ladies & old people even frighten.
For
some time we have issued several communications trying to attract attention of
DMRC to curb this apparent mob culture by providing viable solution but somehow
it has not been able to cut the ice. We have been trying to convince DMRD about
resolving this problem by regulating entry & exit thru separate gates i.e.
out of 4 gates of a coach 2 may be reserved for entry & 2 for exit.
However, despite our repeated references, DMRC is not accepting our suggestion
to regulate entry & exit thru separate gates, and surprising nor it is
giving us any reason for denying it except to state that this practice is
neither followed elsewhere nor it is easy to do.
Unfortunately,
the prime argument being tossed by DMRC is that doors are not regulated in
‘foreign countries’. It appears that DMRC is looking for some precedence and is
not able to dare taking this initiative. Not only this DMRC itself has
confirmed that they had done a trial run in 2013 and the same was appreciated
by commuters but despite that DMRC is shying away only for the reason that same
is not happening else-where.
If
we see, the Delhi Metro is the pioneer in teaching Q theory to residents of
Delhi by forcing them to stand in a ‘Q’ while entering or exiting ‘metro
station’. However, there is no improvement in the manner people board or
de-board a train during rush. A lot of push & shove happens on the gates.
On Rajeev Chowk Yamuna Bank, Laxmi Nagare, Mandi house, Moti Nagar or any other
junction boarding, de-boarding at peak hours is a real challenge, one may
witness scene where people are using FULL muscle power to enter or exit the
train against the mob coming from opposite side, at times ladies even scream
under the pressure. All efforts to teach discipline have not yielded any
result. The presence of security guards has failed to have any impact. Elderly
& children frighten with the idea of boarding a train at a busy station.
The heavy jostling happening at gate is providing a golden chance to pick
pockets. We as a society are far away from achieving discipline in social life
and just preaching by DMRC would not help. At present people standing in the
train, anticipating huge onboarding crowd, starts firming up their feet near
gate in advance before the destination & jam pack the area. Tension can be
seen on the faces of people before arrival of any metro junction and on arrival
of station they just want to jump. At present it’s not less than a torture to
board/de-board at junction stations. Ladies & children pass thru worse
portion of their journey. It is taking away all flavor of journey.
In
order to reach to a viable solution, we first need to understand the psychology
behind this problem and the possible resolution.
While
people step down from the train on a station, those who have to de-board on
next few station come forward to occupy the space leaving little room for
boarding passengers. Further, at time when people start coming out of train,
the passenger outside is able to see a few vacant seats – this makes them crazy
and impatient. Before all passengers come out people from both the corners of
gate start entering the train thereby squeezing person coming out of the train
and sometimes pushing them back inside. Moment, front standing people at
station make a motion to advance, people behind them start actual taking
forward steps and built a momentum in crowd. The front runners immediately
after boarding slow their speed of advancement, by the time momentum already
built outside start taking shape of push. During all this duration those in the
middle of entering rush slows down because of shortage of space. At this moment
people outside get a sense that they may miss the train so they use further
push to strengthen the momentum. So if we observe minutely, the main reason of
push is congestion at gate and whoch is happening because
i) Those who have to de-board on next station don’t want to retract,
ii) Those who have just boarded don’t instantly move inside creating a rush at gate
As a result the tail of entering crowd empower the ‘momentum’ with further push to place itself inside and squeezes persons inside train.
If
we separate the gates for entry & exit, all this above sequence of event
will be broken. Those who enter the train will find ample space because there
are no de-boarding passengers in this area. Further, they will immediately move
to inside areas because they know that they have to move ahead to de-board,
this will keep the entry area free for more people to board and keep the
circulation on and there will be no push. Likewise those who want to de-board
will be tension free & not make haste because they know that there would be
no mob at gate acting against them.
Enforcing
this system should not be a problem because prescribing defined use of a door
is a common practice applicable to other modes of public transport like buses
etc. Moving to adjacent gate, just a few meters away, inside train is not a
difficult task. Further psychologically no entering passenger would stand in
front of exit gate because that will delay his entry – which he does not want
and likewise de-boarding passengers would also not stand in front of entry gate
otherwise they will get a reverse push.
Besides
bringing comfort & relief to commuters the new system will also improve
operational efficiency because the time of train stoppage on all the stations
except on junctions can be reduced. At present every gate has to cater to
entering & departing passengers but in new system the load will be halved.
This is likely to be a self-regulated system because once introduced, no
boarding passenger would stand in front of exit gate and vice-versa.
In our earlier reference of this issue to DMRC, the ‘Public Complains Officer’ has indicated this will not be possible because this is not a practice worldwide. The reply is surprisingly sad, because we as a society are different from others. Our requirements are different. Every-thing what we are doing is not a copy of western countries. On several fronts we are performing better than foreign countries – just for marking entry & exit gate we are looking what foreign countries are doing seems to be very retrograde thinking, not matching with the image of DMRC. While doing anything new it is a good practice to look around and find out what others are doing. But looking around is for the purpose of grabbing what is good and suitable for us. Looking around should not bias our thought process and take away the creativity. The suitability of anything has to be measured in terms of place, time & person until the practice followed any-where else is not modified to suit local context fallacious results are bound to take place. Looking at other countries does not mean that we can’t do anything better. If our scientists can send Mangal Yaan to Mars in first attempt at a much cheaper cost why can’t we be first in introducing a practice not found anywhere in world?
Perhaps
DMRC might have looked at USA, Canada, Europe, Australia or Japan but seems to
have not considered the fact that people in these countries maintain high
standards of discipline in public life unlike India. The situation needs to be
reviewed in terms of local requirement. In foreign countries rush in coaches in
never to the extent as exhibited in India. As per information provided DMRC has
taken five educationist measures for regulating boarding & de-boarding –
but all have failed. It is now even more important now to give trial to a new logical
idea.
We strongly feel that when this simple principle can work well in a roadways bus why it won’t be a success in metro specifically when public is facing so much problem – almost leading to chaos.
We
need to understand basic cause of this problem – The person who is inside wants
to get off early because he has a fear that mob outside will push him back
inside – while people outside wants to enter early because (a) they want to
grab seat and (b) fear that they miss the train. The worst part happens when
people just after entry don’t move ahead – because immediately after entry
their requirement & psychology is changed. Now they want to stand near gate
so that they can de-board easily. In the process, despite having same space in
the center, the congestion near gate never ends.
We are
strongly of the view that reserving gates exclusively for entry or exit this is
a viable solution to this problem which is a libel on the face of DMRC.
DMRC
has also stated it might be difficult to implement the system – but they have
not sated why? In our view it is a very easy task – DMRC just has to mark it on
every gate and educate the people for initial few days. Rest can be left on
‘public-forces’ to operate. It’s quite possible that just in one week it might
change the whole lot of experience of people travelling thru metro. Actually this change is waiting to happen and
DMRC just has to click it. Every car has 4 doors what we suggest that every
alternate gate be reserved for entry & exit respectively or alternatively
central gates may be for entry and corner gates for exit or any other
composition. This will disperse the crowd evenly in a coach and every one would
find exit gate as an adjacent gate. This will motivate people to move inside
train and not to stick to gate only and those in back trail of crowd would find
it easy to board. It appears that DMRC is ‘over’ analyzing the pros & cons
of introducing this system which has blocked its thought process. In any way
there is no harm at all in trying this thing and we strongly fee that it is
indeed a simple task – why DMRC is considering it a difficult task is a
mystery.
Request
DMRC be advised to implement the suggestion with a view to enhance passenger
convenience which is always the motto of Metro.
Yours faithfully,
(S K Goyal)
Secretary – Dwarka Forum
D-103 Shivam Apartment,
Plot-14, Sector-12, Dwarka,
New Delhi-110078. cwa...@gmail.com
Copy to: (1) Shri Shankar Aggarwal, Chairman, DMRC Ltd.& Secretary, MoUD, Nirman Bhawan, New Delhi-110011. secy...@nic.in
Arun Banerjee
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