Mumbai Monorail running with huge loss, cancels 40% trips daily

Mumbai (Urban Transport News): It is not a piece of good news for the Mumbaikars as the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) is canceling daily on an average around 40 percent trips of Mumbai Monorail since it got fully operational between Chembur and Mahalaxmi last month. The failure in operating the Monorail also results in decreasing frequency directly, increasing waiting time and travel time of commuters. MMRDA while making the whole corridor starting March 4, had said that they will operate 131 trips daily but it has been able to operate only 79 trips daily on an average.

The Authority recently announced the performance report of Monorail stating that it operates 79 trips daily on an average carrying more than 17,000 passengers. The reason behind lesser trips being operated daily is due to non-availability of sufficient rakes and spare part for the monorail already available in the Monorail depot. At present only four Monorails are in operation and remaining six trains are non-operational. And due to routine/scheduled maintenance sometimes out of four, only two trains have become functional.

MMRDA is facing trouble in procuring the spare parts for the Monorail and had also informally approached Malaysian supplier Scomi Engineering that was terminated from operating Monorail in December 2018. Scomi Engineering is also one of the manufacturers of the Monorail trains. Due to monorails are operated in a lesser number of trips, the waiting time of commuters has also increased. A monorail passenger who travels regularly said to DNA that many times he reaches the station and comes to know that Monorail is late as not all four trains are functional.

This increases his waiting time, and he also gets demotivated from travelling in Monorail. The MMRDA has already issued bids for appointing a new manufacturer who will supply 10 new Monorail trains. Despite finding better solutions with ex-Operator, MMRDA is taking unplanned and non-productive actions day by day which causing a huge loss to whole Monorail operations and putting public money at high risk.