Mumbai: Run more locals, stagger office time for safety from Covid-19, say commuters – Times of India

MUMBAI: As pictures of overcrowding on some local trains went viral on social media, commuters have demanded better enforcement of social distancing norms to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus by increasing train frequency during peak hours and staggering office timings.
WR and CR are running special trains for essential services staff as nominated by the state government. While WR has 162 services, CR operates 130 on the main line and 70 on the harbour corridor. The services are planned to carry an estimated 1.25 lakh passengers, but the average as of now is 75,000 per day. The trains are run at a frequency of 15 minutes on WR and 15-20 minutes on CR.

Commuters took to Twitter to voice their fears after the pictures of overcrowding went viral. “If this is true then we are just going to Explode… I request @rpfwrbct to deploy extra Manpower at every station to control crowd,” read a tweet.
Zonal Divisional Railway Users’ Consultative Committee member Kailash Verma said, “The railways should do a study of overcrowding hours and accordingly improve frequency. Also, some services should be introduced on slow corridors to distribute crowd load.” As of now, services only run on the fast corridors on WR and on CR’s main line. On harbour, trains have limited stoppages.
CR’s chief public relations officer Shivaji Sutar said, “Passengers are requested to keep safe distances with others inside coach/train during their journey.”