MMTS – A look back at its eventful journey …

MMTS would step into its 9th year of operation on Tuesday Aug 9, 2011. A look back at its journey for these 8 eventful years …

What started as a first of its kind joint venture project between the Railways and the Government of Andhra Pradesh – Remember Railways has stopped taking up the Suburban system quite long ago – a 50:50 joint venture to fulfill the mass transport needs of the twin cities, this was touted as the unique system integrating the rail and road transport for the benefit of commuters.

With an initial investment of close to Rs 160 crores for the initial phase, this has been the cheapest Mass transport system providing the cost effective and fast transport service to commuters, with a per km capital cost of Rs 4 crores. But then the initial investment needed was only for the infrastructure like – development / upgradation of stations and procurement of rakes, as the lines already existed. It’s a different story that the cost of upgradation took 35% more than the estimated one. Also, the no. of rakes procured (10 rakes) was less than the planned numbers (20 rakes) for procurement to keep the overall cost of estimation same.
But what missed out from this planning is the establishment of dedicated lines for the MMTS services – as, only dedicated lines would solve the long term mass transport needs.

When the first service between Secunderabad and Lingampalli was flagged off by the then Home Minister Mr LK Advani in the presence of the then CM of AP Mr Chandrababu Naidu, everyone thought that this is going to be a boon to the twin cities. But the scenario was different. Some of the reasons that could be attributed to that condition –
• Failure to integrate the bus services with the Train services as planned and promised
• Failure to have proper approach roads to the stations
• Failure to commence the combined Train – Bus pass system

Eventually the feeder services named the “MMTS Link Bus” were introduced in March 2005, but RTC was subjected to severe criticism for running the feeder services empty. That showed the clear lack of coordination between the RTC and the railways. At a time when the frequency of train services was very less, one would expect to reach the station in time and catch the MMTS. Had the authorities done the basics right - display of bus timings @ stations, picking up and dropping the passengers at stations in tune with the timings of MMTS, these feeder services would have been a big hit. But it was not so and hence these services had to be withdrawn from operation just few months after its introduction.

This was the worst ever phase in the history of MMTS so far, with its passenger patronage started showing trends of decrease. This even led to withdrawal of certain services. Main stakeholders for MMTS, the Indian Railways and the State Government, had shown a marked disinclination to take any steps. All major recommendations to improve the services were not implemented.

Luckily the Railways did not scrap the system and instead went on an aggressive mode – They started awareness campaign in the old city areas about MMTS and started a dedicated email service to accept the suggestion on the improvement of services.

The next key initiative from the SCR, in early 2007, was the reduction in the running time of the services and modifying the train timings to suit the office goers. This helped a lot to boost the patronage of the MMTS. Within a year, in Dec 2007, the passenger patronage shot up by almost 100%. By this time the combined ticket system was also introduced enabling passengers to travel in both MMTS and the ordinary services of RTC.

From then on, it is an upward journey for MMTS …
• Introduction of LED display systems – the first of its kind in any suburban train system
• Introduction of Smart Card system
• Introduction of GPS to track the movement of trains and announce in the public address system
• Increase in the no. of services
• Introduction of Matribhoomi trains
• Augmentation of the existing rakes with 9 cars to carry more capacity …
The list goes on …
The good thing is the SCR has taken the views of the public into consideration in improving the system.

But then the real intent of forming this system – providing integrated transport – still has not been fulfilled yet.
In spite of all these obstacles, MMTS has come a long way since its inception. From 20,000 passengers a day to close to 1.4 lakhs passengers now, this system has obviously become the best mode of transport available in the twin cities. Had the TDP government been reelected in 2004, the story of MMTS would have been different now.

In spite of all these odds and disinclination from the State Govt, it is good to see the MMTS chugging on … carrying lakhs of passengers daily. Wishing the system many more eventful years of service !!!