With the number of people travelling on the Metro increasing, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation Ltd (DMRC) has decided to attach extra coaches to some of its trains to increase their carrying capacity.
Currently, all the 70 Metro trains have four coaches and are running fully packed as over 8,50,000 passengers travel everyday on the network.
To handle the rush, the coaches will be added to four of the existing trains to make them into six-coach trains. Each additional coach can carry a maximum of 390 people, with 50 sitting and 340 standing. Thus, the carrying capacity will increase by 780 per train for the four trains in which two coaches will be added, a DMRC spokesman said.
These additional coaches will be manufactured by the Bharat Earth Movers Ltd (BEML) in Bangalore and the first two coaches will be delivered by August.
For the first time, these modern Metro rail coaches are being made by an Indian company entirely on their own without any collaboration with a foreign firm. The coaches will be inducted into passenger service after converting the four-car trains into six-car trains in the Metro maintenance depots after testing and trial of the trains for passenger worthiness.
The DMRC can increase train lengths to eight coaches as all Delhi Metro platforms are built with the capacity to accommodate eight-coach trains, except for the new standard gauge lines coming up at Inderlok-Mundka, Central Secretariat-Badarpur and the Airport Express Line which can accommodate six coaches, the spokesman said.
Apart from this, the DMRC has already ordered another 131 train sets whose delivery has already started to cater to the 2 million passengers who are expected to use the Metro network, which will consist of 190 kms after the completion of phase II of the Delhi Metro Project by 2010.
The additional 131 trains will consist of 48 trains of six cars and 83 trains of four cars, he said.
