escalators

Thane

Dadar

Santacruz

Central Railway

emergency stop button

technical failures

Western Railway

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A dysfunctional escalator at Dadar station

Photos by Satish Malavade

Escalators installed at various train stations in Mumbai over the past few years aren’t exactly the godsend that weary-legged commuters had hoped for, going by the government’s numbers. Data from the railways shows that the 76 escalators installed in stations on thewere shut down 1.2 lakh times in the 16 months from April 2018 to July 2019, or about 250 times a day. Of these, 1.12 lakh shutdowns – around 233 a day – were caused by someone pressing the– usually without good reason, and often as a ‘prank’. Only 8,000 shutdowns over the 16-month period – about 16 a day – were due toor items getting stuck in the machinery, according to the data. Technical failures caused less than 1% of all shutdowns, the data showed. “There have also been failures caused by people damaging escalator handrails and throwing things like slippers, keys and pieces of cloth into the machinery on purpose,” said Shivaji Sutar, chief public relations officer, CR.The numbers forwere only marginally better. Over the 16-months period, the 50 escalators installed in stations on the WR were shut down 1.06 lakh times, or about 221 times a day. Of these, only 14,000 shutdowns were due to items getting stuck in the machinery or technical failures. The remaining 92,000 shutdowns were caused by someone pressing the emergency stop button. “Sometimes escalators stop automatically because of a technical fault, but this is rare. Most of the halts are caused by miscreants pressing the emergency button,” said an officer from the Western Railway.Data from July showed that Thane was the worst-affected station. Its eight escalators were stopped 10,848 times just that month. That works out to a whopping 361 times per day, or just over 15 times an hour. Far from a convenience, escalators seem to be a hindrance to commuters.The situation at Dadar was only marginally better.The seven escalators at Dadar Central were halted 6,699 times in July, or about 223 times a day. However, one of these seven escalators has been shut since August 13, when a vandal cut the rubber belt.The escalator won’t be restarted before the end of the month as these made-to-order belts are manufactured in Chennai and cost Rs 4.5 lakh a piece. Meanwhile, Kalyan’s four escalators were halted 3,128 times, or about 104 times a day.Travelers behaved best at Byculla, where the two escalators were stopped ‘only’ 210 times, or seven times a day.The July data painted a somewhat better picture for the Western Railway. Goregaon station’s six escalators were halted 1,130 times that month, or about 44 times a day, while the four escalators at Dadar Western were stopped 630 times, or 21 times a day.Another senior railway official said that 100 employees are deployed on the CR and 80 on the WR every day to help passengers, but end up constantly restarting escalators. They get a message on mobile when escalator shuts down and have to rush to restart it.Ravinder Bhakar, chief public relations officer, WR, said, “As soon as an escalator is stopped, an alert message goes to all concerned staff, who try to restart it immediately. It is not possible to catch miscreants who stop escalators for fun as they usually do so during rush hour, when it is easy to hide in a crowd. The vast majority of such incidents can be attributed to behavioral issues. This is a serious concern and we are trying to educate passengers not to do this.”