Commuters on the Delhi Metro’s new Magenta Line, a section of which is likely to be operational by the end of November, will not have to stand in long queues waiting for passengers ahead of them to swipe their cards or tokens to enter the station.
The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC), which conducted a trial run of the Botanical Garden-Kalkaji Mandir section on Tuesday, demonstrated the ‘open mode’ automatic fare collection (AFC) gate at the Botanical Garden metro station.
Under this mode, the panels of the AFC gates will remain open unless a commuter fails to swipe his/her metro card or token.
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“This will help in crowd management and will save time for commuters, who will not have to wait for the AFC gates to open and shut every time a passenger passes through,” a DMRC spokesperson said.
Many firsts
The Botanical Garden-Kalkaji Mandir section of the Botanical Garden-Janakpuri west (Magenta) line is set to open to the public by November.
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The DMRC officials said that the 12.64-km stretch is complete and is awaiting clearance from the Commissioner for Metro Rail Safety.
This section of the new line will have some attractive features for users such as platform screen doors, which will help in crowd control. Similar doors have been installed at the Rajiv Chowk and Chandni Chowk stations, however, this is the first time such gates have been installed in phase-III of the metro. The line will also have the first-ever elevated stabling yard at Jasola Vihar-Shaheen Bagh metro station, where the trains are parked for maintenance.
The Botanical Garden metro station will become the first interchange station of the NCR. The station is expected to cater to 1,23,020 passengers a day by 2021.
“Even after completion of phase-III, the Botanical Garden station will remain the only interchange station in the NCR,” a statement by the DMRC read. The station will be an interchange point for the Blue (Noida City Centre to Dwarka sector-21) and Magenta lines.
With the opening of this section, residents of Noida will save up to 30 minutes of travel time while going to south Delhi.
At present, a commuter travelling from Botanical Garden to Kalkaji Mandir takes around 52 minutes, with an interchange at Mandi House. Now, however, the travel time will be cut to 19 minutes, directly.
Similarly, the travel time between Noida sector-18 to NHPC Chowk (Faridabad) will also reduce from 58minutes to 36minutes, and between Noida City Centre to Jasola Apollo will also come down from around 50 minutes down to 26 minutes.
This section will also be the first to be operated using the Communication Based Train Control signalling technology, which will facilitate movement of trains with a frequency of 90 to 100 seconds.
Once the entire 38.23-km line is opened operational, commuters from Noida will be able to go to Gurugram by changing trains at Hauz Khas metro station. This will help in decongesting the Rajiv Chowk station, which is currently the interchange point for travellers between the two cities.
Nine stations
The Botanical Garden-Kalkaji Mandir section has nine stations: Kalkaji Mandir, Okhla NSIC, Sukhdev Vihar, Jamia Milia Islamia, Jasola Vihar Shaheen Bagh, Kalindi Kunj, Okhla Bird Sanctuary and Botanical Garden. Except for Kalkaji Mandir, all other stations in the section are elevated.
The section also saw Delhi Metro building its third bridge over the Yamuna. The 574-metre long bridge, with 14 spans (41 metres each) and 15 piers, has come up between the Kalindi Kunj and Okhla Bird Sanctuary stations, and is 85 metres downstream of the Okhla Bridge.