The congested industrial suburb is a hub of medium and small-scale industries that houses corporate offices and call centres of several business process outsourcing (BPO) companies and there has been a long-pending demand for a robust public transport system in the area.

The two new stations — Okhla Phase 3 and Okhla Vihar — will come up on the Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden corridor, said a spokesperson of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

Okhla is divided into three phases. As per a traffic survey conducted by the Delhi Metro, the two upcoming stations will cater to more than 20,000 new commuters, when they open by 2016. The ridership is expected to rise to about 25,000 by 2021.

Presently, Okhla has just one Metro station on the Central Secretariat-Badarpur Metro corridor (violet line). The station is located in Harkesh Nagar area of Okhla’s Phase 2 and registers a footfall of nearly 5,100 passengers every day.

“The Okhla Phase 3 Metro station will be a big boon for the Okhla Industrial Area Phase 3 complex, which houses many industrial units and offices of private companies. There is no Metro connectivity to this area right now. The nearest Metro station is Kalkaji on the violet line,” said Anuj Dayal, chief spokesperson of DMRC. The tenders for the construction of these Metro stations have been awarded and work has begun.

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In a bid to ensure world-class cleanliness, the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has procured a set of new equipment and machinery – including electrically operated scrubber drier and back pack vacuum cleaners – at all its stations and their surrounding areas in Delhi, Gurgaon, Noida and Ghaziabad.

“These new equipment would provide mechanised cleaning operations and ensure dust free sweeping and cleaning. The new system will also dispose waste and garbage in bio-degradable disposal bags,” said Anuj Dayal, spokesperson of DMRC.

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In a bid to reduce vehicular chaos, all new Metro stations coming up under phase III will have separate slots for four wheelers, autos and buses in their premises.

While some existing stations are currently on roads or just beside roads such as Laxmi Nagar, Preet Vihar and Nirman Vihar among others, a major number of those in Phase III will come up on the city’s busy Ring Road and Outer Ring Road.

“We have plans to create drop-off pnsoints at all 91 metro stations to be built in phase III. The provision for drop-off points will depend on the availability of land,” said a Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) spokesperson.

The Delhi traffic police had in February approached DMRC to ensure halt-and-go facilities for auto-rickshaws on the station premises so that commuters, especially women, do not have to come out to board vehicles.

“This arrangement will make sure roads along metro stations are not decongested by rickshaws, autos and buses that pick and drop passengers. Besides, this will ensure smooth and safe shift of commuters from one mode of transport to another,” said Ashok Bhattacharya, director, UTTIPEC, which has proposed a multimodal integration at 68 metro stations in phase 3.

Additional commissioner of police (traffic), Anil Shukla said dedicated drop-off points for auto-rickshaws and other transport vehicles inside the station premises will provide better and safer last-mile connectivity to women commuters.

The traffic police had asked DMRC to explore possibilities for similar arrangements at all existing busy metro stations, wherever possible, to ease traffic woes for commuters.

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The idea of seamless integration of public transport has taken a small step closer to reality. Each of the upcoming stations in Phase III will have a bus stop hardly 50m away from the station gates.

“This arrangement of seamless integration of Metro and bus will help commuters to easily shift from one mode of public transport to another,” said a spokesperson of Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC).

This measure has been taken as per the guidelines set by the Unified Traffic and Transportation Infrastructure (Planning and Engineering) Centre (UTTIPEC), said the spokesperson.

“The seamless integration of these transport modes will help in creating a robust public transport system in the Capital,” said Ashok Bhattacharjee, director, UTTIPEC.

According to sources, in phase 1 and 2, Delhi Metro had primarily catered to the urban commuters and had made elaborate arrangements to provide parking facilities for private vehicles at the stations.

In the current phase, the Metro is expanding to the suburbs and rural belts. So a seamless integration between two modes of public transport has become the need of the hour.

During phase 3, many stations will be built on the Ring Road and Outer Ring Road, where thousands of commuters travel by buses to almost every part of the city.

Some of the existing important Metro stations are integrated with bus stands.

The Metro stations include Kashmere Gate, which is interconnected with an inter-state bus stand (ISBT), and the Anand Vihar station. Stations such as Central Secretariat and Lakshmi Nagar also have bus stops nearby.

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File photo of Metro Bus. PHOTO: EXPRESS/ ZAHOORUL HAQ.

LAHORE: The Intelligence Transportation System (ITS) installed for the Metro Bus System (MBS) might take another 20 days to become functional, The Express Tribunehas learnt.

Peter Jacob, an Australian SCAT (Sydney Coordinated Adaptive Traffic System) expert, supervised the installation of the modern fifth generation traffic signals for four days before returning to Australia on Sunday.

The signals have been installed at Gulab Devi Junction, Qainchi Junction, Gazi Road Junction, Kamahan Junction, Masjid Ibrahim Junction, Chungi Amar Sidhu Junction, Kalma Chowk and Azadi Chowk.

According to an MBS official, six of these signals are expected to become functional in 10 days but the signal at Kalma Chowk might take two more weeks. The Traffic Engineering Transport Planning Agency and the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited were carrying out civil works at Chungi Amar Sidhu, he said.

ITS Urban Unit Project Coordinator Muhammad Razzaq said, “We will complete work on seven traffic signals in a week.” The traffic signal at Kalma Chowk would take some time but would be put in an adaptive mode soon.

The wiring for ITS at Chungi Amar Sidhu had been damaged during civil works…Repairs to the signal would be made after the civil works were finished, he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 25^th, 2013.

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