How to make sure trains aren't running late? Railways finds a shortcut

Indian Railways has changed the run time of the train in order to maintain the punctuality

Indian Railways has found a new way to deal with age-old punctuality problem. 

With several trains running late on different routes across the country, Indian Railways has changed run times in order to maintain punctuality. 

How does it work? 

Touted as the fastest train between Delhi and Mumbai, Bandra Terminus-Hazrat Nizamuddin special Rajdhani Express takes 14 hours to reach its destination. Now, according to a report by PTI, Indian Railways is planning to increase the run time by one hour to stick to a schedule. So, the train which would be marked as late according to the old timetable, will be on time according to the new timetable. 

The proposal mooted by Western Railway and signed off by Northern Railway, North Central Railway and West Central Railway, the sources told PTI, is with the Railway Board for consideration. 

As many as 38 per cent trains have been delayed in the last three months, Minister of State for Railways Rajen Gohain informed the Lok Sabha. 

In April, 39 per cent trains were delayed. In May, the figure stood at 40 per cent and in June 35 per cent of trains were late, taking the average delays to 38 per cent over the last three months.

Among the worst performing zones in the said period, the punctuality of Rajdhani trains in the south-east central zone was 30.77 per cent, while 54.93 per cent of Shatabdi trains ran on time in the eastern zone.

The Southern Railway has already extended the run time of 90 trains by 30 minutes to an hour.  Northern Railway has also proposed to delay the arrival times of nearly 95 trains. 

Various steps have been initiated to improve punctuality, such as the prioritisation of preventive maintenance of assets to the minimization of asset failures, capacity enhancement projects by the construction of additional loop lines at stations, doubling and construction of third line corridors, said Rajen Gohain in Rajya Sabha.

With inputs from PTI