Three snags in Delhi Metro in 24 hrs leave commuters stranded

New Delhi: Commuters faced problems traveling in Delhi Metro's Blue Line on Thursday morning as train services were affected on the entire stretch due to a signalling issue, a day after the corridor faced a similar technical snag twice. "Train services are now running normal on entire Blue Line with a frequency of 3 min 30 seconds on Dwarka- Noida section and 5 min 30 seconds on Yamuna Bank-Vaishali section," said Anuj Dayal, Executive Director, DMRC.

The Blue Line connects Dwarka to Noida and Vaishali and is one of the busiest segments of the Delhi Metro network. Vaishali section branches off from Yamuna Bank, an intersection station. "There is some signalling issue which is intermittently surfacing on Yamuna Bank to Vaishali section of the Blue Line, affecting punctuality of services on the entire Blue Line," a senior DMRC official said. He said a temporary arrangement for train services has been made till the problem is solved.

Dayal said, "The signaling issue pertaining to the Blue Line appeared to be a software related problem and M/s Siemens, whose system is operating on this line has been informed about this and log of the erratic behavior of the signaling system has been also sent to their headquarters in Germany for further detailed analysis to help us understand the cause for this fault."

"The DMRC has adopted a 'fail-safe' system for running of Metro services keeping 'passenger safety supreme'. In the eventuality of any failure, the trains have to follow a set protocol for providing/continuing the services in manual mode with restricted speed in the affected section(s) thereby leading to bunching of trains but ensuring full safety," Dayal added.

Several commuters took to twitter and complained of delays. Many said that their trains were stuck for as long as 30 minutes. "The metro was standing at Nirman Vihar for around 30 mins today morning and the Noida metro was also moving very slow," tweeted Priya Singh, a commuter.

Another commuter tweeted, "I used to reach my destination BVP college from Vaishali metro in 60 minutes. Today I was struck in between many times and even didn't reach half my destination in 60 minutes."

Train services were affected twice on the Line due to signalling issues in different sections of the corridor.

The first technical snag had occurred around 3 pm. The issue was resolved at 4:23 pm and train services were started as per schedule. However, the snag recurred around 7 pm at another section.