Unreserved trains from Bengaluru Division see good patronage, more pairs proposed

BENGALURU: With four out of the six pairs of unreserved passenger trains launched by the Bengaluru Railway Division on December 7 generating a good response from commuters, a proposal has been set to the Railway Board to launch more special train pairs from the Division.

The Division has been among the first few in the country to open up unreserved trains, post stoppage of train operations on March 22.

Statistics furnished by the Commercial Department between December 7 and December 20 revealed that the special train run between KSR Bengaluru and Marikuppam had 25,331 passengers from the KSR end and 28,749 passengers in the return direction. The special between Bangarpet and Mysuru had 14,162 passengers from Bangarpet side and 13,681 passengers from Mysuru end.

The trains between KSR and Hosur as well as that between Yesvantpur and Hassan have seen very poor patronage. The KSR-Hosur train has the lowest occupancy of all six train pairs with just 526 passengers in the onward direction in the 14 days following the launch while it had 621 passengers from the Hosur end. The lowest number of passengers on this train was 16 on December 7 while the highest so far has been 92. Occupancy figures have ranged from a low of 3% on the train with the highest at 9%.

The Yesvantpur-Hassan train is slightly better with 826 travellers so far from the Yesvantpur direction and 624 from Hassan side. The occupancy percentages range between 1% and 24% with both directions included.

Senior Divisional Commercial Manager, Bengaluru Division, A N Krishna Reddy, told The New Indian Express that the special train running between KSR and Marikuppam and that between Bangarpet and Mysuru had become extremely popular in both directions. The occupancy percentage crosses 200% on many days and even touched upto 295% a day from Marikuppam end.

"There are passengers who keep boarding at intervening stations, thereby shooting up the percentage. It does not refer only to passengers from boarding stations," Reddy explained. "We have now proposed more trains along this stretch to cater to the demand in these directions, " he added.

Regarding the trains with very poor occupancy like the ones towards Hosur and Hassan, Reddy said, "In the case of the few trains that are not generating good response, we plan to finetune the timings or extend them to nearby stations so that they improve their occupancy levels. Cancellation of these routes will be the last option," Reddy said.

The proposal submitted to the Railway Board has called for the launch of these new trains:
One pair each between KSR-Kengeri-KSR, Hosur-Baiyappanahalli-Hosur, Yesvantpur-KSR-YPR, Bengaluru Cantonment to Bangarpet via Yelahanka, Bangarpet-Yesvantpur-Bangarpet, Yesvantpur-Arisikere-YPR, Yesvantpur- Dharmapuri-Yesvantpur, KSR-Devanahalli-KSR, Devanahalli-Yelahanka-Devanahalli and KSR-Devanahalli-Bengaluru Cantonment; two pairs between KSR-Jolarpettai-KSR, KSR-MYS-KSR and these unidirectional trains:  Yesvantpur-Bangarpet, Kolar-KSR and Yesvantpur-KSR station. It is also proposed to extend the train pair between Yesvantpur-Hindupur upto KSR.
 

KSR-Marikuppam-KSR	KSR Dep 25,231 Marikuppam Dep: 28,749
Bangarpet-Mysuru-BWT	BWT Dep 14,162 Mysuru Dep: 13,681
Yesvantpur-Tumukuru-YPR	YPR Dep 4848  TK Dep 6800
Yesvantpur-Hassan-YPR	YPR Dep 826   Hassan Dep 624
Yesvantpur-Hindupur-YPR	YPR Dep 3015  Hindupur Dep 4149
KSR-Hosur-KSR	KSR Dep 526   Hosur Dep 621

No service on Sundays, December 13 and 20