Mumbai locals trains reopening | Maharashtra developing app, colour coded tickets for effective crowd control

Commuters lean out of an overcrowded local train on the day of Railway Recruitment Board Examination (RRB), in Patna, Bihar. (Image: PTI)

The Maharashtra government is looking to restart local train services for the general public soon. Though reopening the suburban trains in Mumbai and the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) would come as a relief to all commuters, the authorities are worried about finding effective ways to control the crowd inside the local trains.

Separate time slots have been proposed by the Maharashtra government to prevent overcrowding inside the Mumbai locals amid the coronavirus pandemic, but that may not be enough. Therefore, the Maha Vikas Agadhi government in Maharashtra is considering the use of technology for effective crowd management, reported the Hindustan Times.

A web-based app is currently being developed for the same and there are plans to introduce colour coding as well for the people who would travel by the local trains during non-peak hours.

After the Maharashtra government had written to the Western and Central Railways to allow all commuters to travel by locals, the rail authorities had advised them to take the help of technology for effective crowd control.

Speaking the state government’s progress on the same, Kishor Raje Nimbalkar, Secretary, Relief and Rehabilitation Department, Maharashtra, said: “We will develop the application. We are also working on the colour-coding mechanism to restrict the number of passengers in suburban trains.”

A government official attached to the state secretariat has informed that the application that is being developed will help commuters book tickets and choose the time slot they wish to travel in. This in turn would help the railways regulate the number of tickets being issued and limit the number of people inside the trains at a given time. The tickets will be colour-coded to specify the time slot they are expected to travel in.