Metro rail to curtail services between March 23 and 31

TIMES NEWS NETWORK

Chennai:22.03.2020

Chennai Metro Rail will curtail services between March 23 and 31 to discourage commuters from undertaking non-essential travel and to protect themselves from Covid-19. CMRL will operate only 25 trains instead of 35 between 6am and 10am and from 4pm to 8pm. Services will not be available for the rest of the day.

A metro rail official said trains will operate from 6am to 10am and from 4pm to 8pm only for people on essential services. Trains will operate with a seven-minute frequency on both the corridors from Washermenpet to Airport and from Chennai Central to St Thomas Mount. Trains operating between Chennai Central and Airport via Koyambedu will be available every 14 minutes. Trains will not operate from 4.30am to 6am, 10am to 4pm and from 8pm to 11pm. The change in train timings was made following instructions from the ministry of housing and urban affairs.

“We want to suspend services completely for a week. But we want to facilitate the use of our servicesby those in the essential services sector like corporation workers, doctors and policemen,” the official said. “As the change in the services was based on the instruction from the Ministry, all metros across the country may curtail services,” he added.

Earlier, metro rail decided to reduce peak hour frequency from five minutes to seven minutes and cut down on the number of trains on operations to 25 from 35, as footfalls dropped by 50% and they needed time to clean and sanitize the trains at the end of every trip. The daily average patronage was at 1.2 lakhs and officials said it has dropped since last week after schools and colleges were shut and office-goers started to work from home.

CMRL has started cleaning and disinfecting its trains on operations at Chennai Central and Airport metro stations, as they are the originating and terminating stations. “We need three to four minutes to disinfect trains with the approved chemicals effective against Covid-19,” the official said.

Stations are also disinfected periodically, while staff are provided protective gear like hand gloves and face masks and are instructed to screen passengers for body temperature with a thermometer gun before they board trains.