Metro's Metro's Last Mile

This Delhi trip had been better than ever. I had preplanned an outstation trip which I had to cancel because of crazy amount of other work. Was busy, was traveling a lot and was using "Delhi Metro" a lot for that.

My first tryst with Metro was nine years back when its first phase was under construction. One of the construction site was nearby my school. One fine day attracted by all the "never seen before" heavy machinery in use I walked up to the engineer there to have a chat. He described the machines in use as outdated technology. It was bit of a shock that no local talent was available/capable to oversee the usage of "outdated machines".

I can fill up pages on how the Metro changed lives of Delhites and ended up providing much more than just a transport system. Construction site that I was talking about is of ISBT. That area was a park being occupied by antisocial elements. Now it is a world class infrastructure occupied by lots of businesses.

There must be many invisible elements working behind the scenes to enable functioning of whole system but three things that I noticed recently and found them as steps towards perfection were

1. Usage of mobile phone signal boosters: Whole journey through underground patches is without any signal strength reduction and voice cancellation/interference.


2. Usage of railings in front of non-door parts: People used to stand everywhere on the platform. Also used to move along the train as it approaches halt. Usage of barricades on rest of the body has resulted in people queuing up in front of doors. Delhites queuing? Trust me, it is quite a change.


3. Pointers for queue: Simple stickers on the floor which are signs for creating queue to enter and exit. Simple but very effective in rush hours.
   

Traffic problem in Delhi is now virtually non existant and everybody talks happily and highly of "Delhi Metro".