All of a sudden, the thought of every day travel to office seemed a far-fetched idea for Sojo. Till then for the past few years, she took the shuttle train on all working days to cover the long distance from her home in Kollam to her workplace at the Civil Supplies office at Mallappally.
But the stoppage of train services since the lockdown has overturned her travel plans. After struggling for a while, Sojo offered to share her car with three of her fellow members in the Whatsapp network ‘Friends on Rail (FOR)’.
The group now shares fuel costs and spends the one-and-half-hour-long journey in her car talking about politics, favourite movies, and home-making tips. The 40-year-old is one among the hundreds of rail commuters who has used FOR—a network of about 6,000 rail commuters comprising students to government employees—to connect with drivers or fellow riders and make such alternate arrangements during the lockdown period.
A voluntary non-profit organisation that operates through about 30-odd WhatsApp groups, FOR used to provide passengers with all essential information regarding train timings, schedule changes, and cancellations. Liyons J., administrator of FOR, says the network decided to promote car pooling to address the pressure on public transportation in the changed scenario.
“Several ride-sharing groups have been formed along the Parassala-Kottayam-Alappuzha sector with FOR facilitating their rides to different destinations. It is helping people to save money and tackle congestion,” he says.
According to Mr. Liyons, FOR has evolved into a ride-sharing network after serving initially as a platform to share inputs on medicine dispatches or helping the stranded members during the lockdown days.
P. Krishnakumar, general secretary of the Thrissur Railway Passengers Association, says the trend of ride-shares is catching up among the rail users across the State in a big way. “Even as the restrictions on travel ease, the daily struggle to commute has prompted formation of such groups that share rides.”
Taking note of the plight of rail commuters post the lockdown, the association has moved a couple of petitions to Railways and the State government seeking steps to resume at least the shuttle train services. “We have requested Railways to divide the State into different clusters and operate local services by charging express fares from the commuters. While the operation of inter-State services is debatable, there is no point in keeping the local train services halted, as other forms of public travel including buses have already started operations,” Mr. Krishnakumar said.
Railway officials, however, maintained that they could do nothing about it since the decision to resume operations should come as part of the national policy. In such a scenario, ride-share seems to be a trend to stay.