The state government has stepped up to the Mumbai metro as of October 15, but service on the Versova-Andheri-Ghatkopar (VAG) corridor will finally resume on October 19. While Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL) has decided to resume its operations in a phased manner, the monorail will also resume from October 18 on the Chembur-Wadala-Jacob Circle route.
As a preventive measure against Covid-19, the temperature inside the subway cars will vary between 25 and 27 degrees. While trains will stop at smaller stations for 30 seconds, they will stop for 180 seconds at main stations to ensure adequate ventilation. Additionally, MMOPL will replace plastic tokens, the most preferred form of ticket sales before the pandemic, with paper tickets.
An MMOPL official said this is being done to minimize personal interaction at the ticket offices. “We would prefer that people go digital using a mobile phone, a QR code or swipe card tickets,” the official said.
The temperature of the passengers will also be checked at some point before boarding the subway. The number of health desks will depend on the size of the station. Larger stations like Andheri, Ghatkopar, Marol or Versova will have two or three health desks, while the smaller ones will only have one.
The MMOPL claims they have been sanitizing the rakes, seats and trainers during the shutdown. Although the lobby and platforms will have social distancing stickers, stickers have also been affixed to occupy alternate seats on the coaches. It will be mandatory for passengers to wear masks at all times.
The number of entry and exit points will be reduced and carefully controlled. On average, each station has around five entry / exit points and, after controls, passengers go to the platforms using two or three points. These will be kept to a minimum, depending on the number of passengers, who would likely be essential service personnel.
The MMOPL expects the average daily passenger count to be around 25,000-30,000, a big drop from the regular 4.5 lakh before the pandemic. In each car of a four-car train, there will be about 50 passengers. Under normal circumstances earlier this year, there used to be 350-375 passengers per coach.
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