After New Delhi, Railways to develop permanent holding areas at 76 high density stations for effective crowd management

“Indian Railways regularly experiences significant passenger surge due to fixed calendar events such as local festivals, recruitment examinations among others. These occasions lead to an increase in passenger load resulting to challenges related to operations as well as crowd,” said the Board.

The Board said that to address these issues, a waiting area should be constructed the station and complete access control of platform should be ensured. Twelve stations under Northern Railway will get a holding area, followed by eight under Western Railway and six each in Cental, East Cental and South Central Railway.

“All unauthorised entry points should be sealed and proper planning of barricading should be done so that passengers with confirmed reserved tickets are given direct access to the platform whereas passengers without ticket or with waiting list ticket wait outside,” the Board said.

It also said that the movement plan of general class passengers should be made so that they are equally divided for both front and rear general coaches.

The plan also comprises the construction of Foot over Bridges (FOBs), installation of CCTV cameras for crowd management, monitoring war rooms, installation of latest digital communication equipment such as walky-talkies, announcement systems, calling systems, among others.

The Board also said that all railway and contractor stall and service personnel should be given a new design ID card so that only authorised people can enter the station.

Some of the stations shortlisted for this programme are Mumbai CSMT, Lokmanya Tilak Terminus, Howrah, Sealdah, Patna, Darbhanga, Bhubaneswar, Anand Vihar Terminal, Nizamuddin, Kanpur, Mathura, Agra, Gorakhpur, Guwahati, Secunderabad, Tirupati, and Chennai Egmore.

The newly developed holding area at New Delhi stations spans across 5281 square metres, with 22 ticket counters, 25 Automatic Ticket vending machines (ATVM), 17 CCTV cameras, five luggage scanners, wifi system, 120 seats, 18 fans, RO plant for drinking water, and toilets.