The Western Railway (WR) has decided to assess the talkback system — which allows women commuters to directly contact the train guard in case of trouble — by January. The talkback system will be placed in the ladies coach of two trains on an experimental basis and is an initiative to improve women security, especially when they are travelling at odd hours.
The WR has awarded the tender for the same to a Belgium company called Telvic which also currently provides the system through which a motorman talks to the commuters informing them why a train is stuck between stations owing to technical glitches. Officials said that during the very nascent stage of testing, the railways realised that when the talkback speaker is used, the voice was carried through the speaker to both the motorman and the guards cabin, but this could disturb the former while driving the train. The voice is also being carried to all the coaches as well, that is, both the general and the other ladies coaches.
The system will be tested on trains running between Churchgate and Virar. WR chief public relations officer, RavinderBhakar said, “The tender has just been awarded to Telvic that already handles our speaker system from the motorman to the commuters. We will be able to run the system by mid or end of January. It will be a pilot project and if successful the plan is to implement it on all the trains. The tender is for Rs 24 lakh.”
The WR has a total of 84 rakes running on its line every day and 10 on standby in case of failures and maintenance.
An official on the condition of anonymity said, “We were facing some difficulty in the information management system and the coach controller equipment. They were not synchronising, but now the issue has been sorted by Telvic and so the work should be completed within time.”
The WR has seen two molestations in running train back in the year 2013 in which a nurse was molested in the early morning hours between Mahalaxmi and Charni Road and in another incident an American citizen sustained minor injuries when a man entered the ladies coach and snatched her iPhone.
