MEMU city service falls flat

Kochi: The much-hyped city MEMU services launched by the Southern Railway in the Angamaly-Piravom Road section aiming at short-distance commuters are operating at a loss even as the passenger community is demanding its revival after proper planning.

“The daily ridership in some of the trips is 100 to 150 at peak hour in an eight-coach MEMU with a passenger capacity of 1,500;  it goes up to 450 on an average,” a senior railway officer said. “The increase in passenger ridership is way behind the targeted traffic forecast after six months of operation.”  

The fallout was such that the Kerala State Road Transport Corporation has discontinued its link services to city MEMU service after 20 days of operation. “We have been forced to discontinue the non- AC low-floor services which we introduced to provide last-mile connectivity to commuters following the railway’s request as they plied almost empty,”said Mr Joy George, district transport officer, Ernakulam. “One factor was that there were only few commuters as against our expectation. Another was that the city services often arrived late, which resulted  in parking issues for our buses at the south railway station.”

The passenger associations have also come out demanding a revival of the city MEMU services.

“The railways launched the services without any study,” said Paul K.J. Manvettom, president, All-Kerala Railway Users Association. “Usually a commuter won’t travel to the railway station to catch a short distance train to destinations like Aluva and Angamaly where frequent bus services are available. Otherwise, they should operate MEMU at an interval of 10 or 15 minutes so that the commuter can be sure of another option. Also most of the city services are being operated at non-peak hours.”  

The association has already asked the divisional railway authorities to consider extending the ‘MEMU’ services to Thrissur and Kottayam.

‘Metro is different, will not suffer same fate’
The Kochi metro services mainly aim office-goers and those currently travelling in their private vehicles and would be based on a proper traffic forecast study.

“Unlike the railway city service, the metro rides will have the time-saving factor for the commuters besides the high frequency of services. We've even completed the ridership study on the Aluva-Angamaly section and that to Kakkanad. Since the later was found to have more ridership, we're taking the extension to Kakkanad first after the first stage (Aluva to Thripunithura),” said a senior Metro official.

The expected peak hour traffic demand on the Aluva-Pettah corridor is 13, 681 phpdt upon starting the operations and this is likely to increase to 21, 065 phpdt by 2025.

“Road-based public transport cannot meet this demand. Further, the metro would reduce the journey time by 50 to 75 percent when compared to road traffic,” he said.

The state government is actively considering extending the services to Angamaly. “There is no fear of less demand from the commuters' side as Angamaly is already the station where the railways issue maximum season tickets. It shows a large group is already travelling to the city.”