Mumbai locals to have more AC coaches after survey shows commuters prefer them – Hindustan Times

The Western Railway (WR) is planning to scale up the number of air-conditioned coaches on the Mumbai suburban rail network, after a recently conducted survey revealed that passengers in Mumbai want to travel on such trains, news agency ANI reported.

The survey was conducted with a total of 20 questions, WR general manager Alok Bansal told ANI, of which, 70% of the passengers urged authorities to increase the number of air-conditioned coaches on the Mumbai suburban train network.

“We’re working towards more AC local services and we’re in continuous talks with Maharashtra government’s Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP) and central government’s Mumbai Rail Vikas Corporation (MRVC),” he added.

Although Bansal clarified that non-AC coaches are not going to be off the tracks, he pointed out that going ahead, most of the trains will have air-conditioning.

He further said that the Western Railway authorities are planning to introduce hybrid local trains, which will comprise both AC and non-AC coaches. “We expect in the coming few years, all locals will have AC coaches along the [the] present non-AC coaches. We are conducting a feasibility test for the same,” Bansal was quoted as saying by ANI.

He also noted that the Western Railway is in talks with the Indian Coach Factory (IFC) for the technical elements associated with connecting AC and non-AC coaches, besides others.

Mumbai local trains – which is the lifeline of the financial capital of India — was reopened for the public amid the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic on August 15, given that commuters are fully-vaccinated. While announcing, Maharashtra chief minister Uddhav Thackeray clarified that there must mandatorily be a gap of 14 days between the date of availing of the local train services and the administration of the second dose of the coronavirus vaccine.

Following the resumption of the services, passenger footfall witnessed an increase with nearly 1.3 million passengers travelling on the Western Railway in September as opposed to 1.1 million in August. The same rise was noticed on Central Railway as well with nearly 2.2 million people commuters this month as against 1.5 million in August.