Guwahati, 19 April (HS). To ensure passenger convenience during summer and manage the expected increase in travel demand, Indian Railways is operating a record 9111 trips during the summer season. This represents a substantial increase compared to summer 2023, where a total of 6369 trips were offered. This is an increase of 2742 trips, which demonstrates Indian Railways' commitment to effectively meet passenger demands.
Sabyasachi Dey, Chief Public Relations Officer, Northeast Frontier Railway (PUSIRE), said on Friday that during this summer season, PUSIRE will operate 88 trips of additional trains to ensure smooth and comfortable travel of the passengers.
The additional trains have been carefully planned to connect major destinations across the country to ensure seamless travel on major rail routes. In the summer season, all the zonal railways have made preparations to operate these additional trips from different states of India to reduce the rush of passengers. Summer special trains are being run from Assam, Tripura and parts of West Bengal and Bihar to major destinations spread across India under the jurisdiction of PUSIRE.
Planning and operating additional trains is an ongoing process, which requires media reports, social media platforms, railway integrated helplines, besides details of waitlisted passengers in the PRS system, to assess the demand for trains running on a particular route. Inputs are taken 24×7 from all communication channels like number 139. Based on this requirement, the number of trains and the number of trips are increased. Neither the number of trains nor the number of trips operated by additional trains remains constant for the entire season.
Zonal Railways have been instructed to ensure availability of drinking water at railway stations during the summer season. Extensive arrangements for crowd control have been made at all major and important railway stations. Senior officers are deployed at these stations to monitor all activities to control overcrowding in a systematic manner.
RPF personnel have been deployed at originating stations to ensure queuing system for entry into general class coaches. Skilled RPF personnel have been deployed in the CCTV control room to keep a close watch on the crowded places and provide real time assistance to the passengers.
Government Railway Police (GRP) and Railway Protection Force (RPF) personnel are deployed on foot-over bridges to smoothly control the crowd to avoid stampede-like situations during heavy rush periods.
Indian Railways is committed to provide convenient and comfortable travel experience to all passengers. Passengers can book their tickets in these additional trains through Railway Ticket Counter or IRCTC website/app.