The commuters had a tough time getting Metro on Dwarka-Noida line on Monday as the trains were delayed by at least one hour during the morning rush hour due to technical glitches.
One could see unmanageable heavy rush at the Metro stations that resulted in a near stampede like situation after an automatic train supervision server failure. The passengers jostled, pulled and pushed each other to board the train. Line 3/4 is the busiest line with maximum footfall as it connect Dwarka sub city with Noida and Anand Vihar.
Trains were moving at a slow speed and some stopped at stations at around 10 am when the problem arose. Normalcy could be restored by 11.30 am, but minor delays continued till 4 pm due to cascading effect.
“The automatic train supervision (ATS) server failure was caused due to frequent loss of train identification numbers and bunching of trains on line 3/4. The train numbers were lost due to some software malfunctioning so trains could not run. The trains were run on manual mode for some time and the numbers were resetted,” a Metro official said.
Each Metro train is numbered and their movement is monitored at the operational control centre at the Metro headquarters here. Over 10 trips had to be cancelled on Tuesday. Huge queues could be seen at almost all stations on the line. The trains were jam-packed after they started running.
There was almost a stampede-like situation at the Anand Vihar Metro station due to the delays. Some passengers said the public announcement system inside the Metro trains failed and there was a big confusion about approaching stations.
“I took a train from Rajendra Place thinking that I will reach CP in 10 minutes. But it was slow and took over half-an-hour. It was jam packed. There was no place to stand. Everybody was pushing and pulling. The announcements were wrong and it got stuck in Jhandewalan for more than 10 minutes. It was utter chaos everywhere,” Kartika Sharma, a commuter said.
Line 3 is the crowdiest corridor of the city’s new age transport system as it ferries over 5.5 lakh people every day. More than a million people in the city take Metro everyday.