Title - ‘MMTS provides wheels to City’

Divisional railway manager of Secunderabad, Sushant Kumar Mishra talks to Padmini C of Postnoon about the challenges of MMTS in the City and the relevance of commuter trains in the age of the metro.

Should the MMTS serve a viable alternative to other modes of public transport in the city?

Yes, absolutely, only if it’s organised properly. In cities like Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, the organising principle has been to segregate commuter lines from non-commuter lines, long-distance trains. But in this City, what has happened is that there seems to have been some corner cutting. On the same lines that we have passenger trains, we have commuter trains. As long as there was spare capacity in the lines, it wasn’t a problem but now with Hyderabad growing, there are more trains being introduced every year and that has resulted in increased traffic across the City’s stations.

So right now, what are the challenges this has lead to?

Due to these lines, there are conflict points. For instance, Kachiguda was not a major terminal in the past. Now, scores of trains connect this station. There are other constraints too. There are surface crossings. It means that one train has to pass before another one can go. This is affecting the punctuality of the trains.

Commuter services are good if they are reliable. We are not able to meet these expectations because of our infrastructural constraints. To increase the number of tracks, to have dedicated lines, and to implement bypass crossings. All these must get serious attention. Hopefully, that’ll change in the future.

As you say, timings and cancelled trains are the presently the biggest grouses of passengers.

Due to the running of trains throughout the day and night, there’s no time for track maintenance. So recently, we have taken the decision to cancel some trains in the lean hours for about ten days. By then, we expect the track to be restored to health and the time we are losing for some trains can be improved.

Will the Phase II of MMTS provide remedy the situation?

Unfortunately, Phase II is not addressing the issue. What it is aiming to do is to double bypasses on a few routes. But the main issue of segregating commuter and non commuter remains. Maybe in the next phase, we’ll have to look at this. While the current workings might be imperfect, they are at least, immediate.

Another problem felt by many passengers is the lack of feeder services. What do you think can be done to improve them?

The planning bodies of the State must get involved. Commuters should get the issues to the relevant authorities. RTC has to run buses. Taxi services have to be better organised. Parking areas have to be improved. Level crossings should be eliminated and subways built. The State government is alive to the issue and taking note. But resources are a problem.

Speaking of, a railway official termed the MMTS service a social service obligation. The financial returns are truly negligible, are they not?

It’s not the commuters’ fault. They will surely pay a little more if Railways charged more. But we have a national policy to keep tickets at nominal prices. So, if the policy changes at some point and if we charge at the same rate as an APSRTC bus, it will still be cheaper than any other mode of transport.

Also, with ever increasing patronage, will we soon reach saturation in terms of capacity in Hyderabad?

While the trains are quite popular in the City, they haven’t reached the levels of Mumbai or Kolkata. In fact, we should not reach those levels. People should be able to travel in comfort, which also means more frequency of running trains. We are running trains at fifteen minute intervals now, after segregation, we would be able to run at five minute intervals.

In the age of the Metro, what role will the MMTS play?

They are not competing corridors at all. If anything, they will complement each other. In fact, Railways would like Metro to take over the commuting services. But every city cannot afford a metro. So what we are trying to do is that, because habitations are coming up along the railway track, we aim to provide them with an affordable mode of transport.

So the MMTS will still be relevant.

Yes, the MMTS is connecting the growing parts (the suburbs) with the heartland. And with Hyderabad growing into a metropolis, the need for good commuter services will become paramount. The Metro will be there for some areas, of course, but it is expensive. The MMTS will be a cheaper alternative. Fortunately, there is a healthy co-operation between the State Government and Railways here, so this integration between the two might be realised and also solve long-term issues.

Any other initiatives on the MMTS front?

Nothing major. We have quite a bit of problems running the existing services very well. If we can operationally sort them out and run them well, it’s enough. But having said that, despite all these congenital constraints, even during the peak hours we are able to maintain an acceptable amount of reliability, so that’s a challenge accomplished.