Day after Blue Line chaos,DMRC orders review

The Delhi Metro is reviewing its operations strategy after Thursdays chaos when a glitch in the signalling system led to disruption of services for over five hours.

Though trains on the affected stretch between Pragati Maidan and Mandi House were automatically slowed down to a speed of 25 kmph,drivers had to communicate with the operations control centre manually.

The glitch threw train operations off track on the entire Line 3/ 4 (Dwarka Sector 21 to Noida City Center/ Vaishali) for most of the morning. Since the glitch occurred during peak hours,a delay of 5.5 minutes

on every train caused bunching (congestion of trains) on the tracks.

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The DMRC is reviewing its operations strategy so such glitches are managed better and less time is lost in manual communication. The voice logs of Thursdays operations are being reviewed and recommendations are expected to come up in two weeks time, said Raj Kumar,Director (Operations),DMRC.

Trains on the affected line run on automatic train protection,a computer-based signalling system that prevents collision. Due to a glitch in a component of a stellar card (a device that helps communicate trains positions on the tracks),drivers could not tell how far their train was from the one ahead. We tried to reboot the system… so the affected area increased… Distance between Pragati Maidan and Mandi House,which usually takes two minutes,took 5.5 minutes, Kumar said.

While ROTEM trains on this line had already been modified,and could adapt to the glitch and run normally from Mandi House onwards,the Bombardier trains are yet to be modified and they continued to run on non-ATP mode, he said.

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