Kolkata: Three new AFC-PC gates have been commissioned behind the middle ticket counters of the old Esplanade Metro Station of Blue Line for the benefit of the Metro users.
These new gates have been enabling commuters of Blue Line and Green Line Corridors to exit smoothly from the paid areas of old and new Esplanade Metro Stations’ premises. One out of these three Smart Gates is bi-directional.
As Esplanade is the meeting point of the Blue Line and Green Line, considering the rush of passengers, these additional QR enabled gates have been installed. These modern gates can handle 45 passengers per minute. Passengers after getting down at the old Esplanade Metro Station can now punch their Metro tokens, smart cards at these gates to exit the station premises. Apart from that, commuters coming from Green Line 2 (Howrah Maidan-Esplanade) and wanting to exit from the old Esplanade Metro Station of Blue Line through the common corridor, can also punch their Metro tokens, smart cards and scan QR Code tickets at these gates.
With the addition of these three new AFC-PC Gates, at present there are 28 such Smart Gates at old Esplanade Metro station. Out of these 28 gates, five gates are QR enabled gates and 23 gates are dedicated for the entry and exit of passengers travelling with tokens and smart cards. Apart from this, in order to help the passengers to switch smoothly from one Corridor to the other at Esplanade, Metro Railway authorities have installed special indicative footprints in Blue and Green colours at old Esplanade Metro Station as well as new Esplanade Metro Station.
If any commuter after getting down at old Esplanade Metro Station follows these Green footprints installed on the floor of the concourse area of the station, they will be able to seamlessly go to the new Esplanade Metro Station through the inter-connecting passage. Indicative footprints in Blue and Orange colours have already been installed at old and new Kavi Subhash Metro stations to guide the commuters to change from Blue Line to Orange Line and vice versa.