Five services to be introduced on Andheri-Virar section

The Western Railway (WR) is likely to introduce five new services for the Andheri-Virar section from the end of November to decongest stations during peak hours.

WR officials are currently thinking of ways to adjust the current time-table and re-introduce trains that currently run between Churchgate, Andheri and Virar, revealed an official on the condition of anonymity.

“Currently the WR has a gap of three minutes between two trains during peak hours, so even though we want to introduce these five extra services we are currently looking into how it will be adjusted in the peak hours, which is a limited amount of time but crucial in terms of the high number of footfalls.”

This will mean that a commuter at Virar would get to choose between five services towards Churchgate during the morning peak hours from 8 am to 11 am. Similarly, a commuter would get the option of additional services from Churchgate to Virar during the peak evening hours from 4 pm to 7 pm, the officer said .

“In terms of how many people it will help, we think each service will be able to carry 15,000 passengers more. This will be a big help in decongesting the crowd a little bit.”

The WR had increased the number of services to Dahanu by 14 last month, and officials were trying to find a way to increase services in is heaviest corridor between Churchgate and Virar but found it to be logistically impossible.

According to a 2009 survey, Andheri station sees the heaviest footfall on the WR with 6.04 lakh passengers per day. Officials said that they hope that the new services will help in diffusing some of this rush.