Mumbai’s suburban local train services will return to their full capacity from Thursday, October 28. In a joint statement, the Central Railway (CR) and Western Railway (WR) said that only categories identified by the government as on date are permitted to travel as per the standard operating procedures (SOP). “The decision has been taken considering the increased flow of commuters in local trains,” said Shivaji Sutar, chief public relations officer of CR, adding that though the number of suburban services will increase from Thursday, the existing travel restrictions on suburban locals will remain unchanged.
The train services have remained affected ever since the announcement of the COVID-19 lockdown in March last year. First, the operation was completely stalled during the initial lockdowns after which they had been operating at partial capacity. Currently, Western Railway is operating these services at 95 per cent capacity, which is around 1,300 services per day. But now, Western Railways’ officials hope to max out their capacity and take the daily service count to 1,367 from ongoing week.
WR had last increased its service operation on August 16 after the Maharashtra Government allowed full vaccination passengers to buy monthly season tickets. WR and Central Railways had added a combined 173 new services to their daily count. Before this increase, WR was operating with 1,201 services, while CR ran with 1612 services per day. CR is currently operating 1,686 services per day.
The increase in the train services is likely to help the railways zone to cater to a larger passenger base. With the festive season and economy opening up, local train services in Mumbai have been witnessing a sharp rise in footfall.
While CR catered to an average daily passenger count of 25-28 lakh, WR operated with 19-22 lakh footfalls daily.
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