A walk-through of the clockwork precision of Chennai Metro Rail system Premium

Chennai Metro Rail offers safe, fast, and comfortable public transportation with a dedicated workforce ensuring clockwork precision.

Metro is sleek. It offers the most comfortable journey in a public transport system in Chennai. It is easy for the commuters who hop on and off in a jiffy. As in any other mass transit system, the workforce doesn’t sleep so as to take you to your destination, safe and fast, along the 54-km phase I network. Here is a simple walk-through from the time the clockwork precision begins at the Metro Rail system. It all begins at Koyambedu, the depot control centre and the operations control centre, as early as 3.45 a.m., when the train operators walk in.

We speak to an operator, Punitha, 30, to know how she prepares the train for the passengers. “I have been an operator for three years. I start the day at nearly half past two in the morning and walk into the depot at Koyambedu  at 4 a.m.,” she says. First, she takes a breathalyser test, informs the head that she tested negative, and then begins her day. “I can’t step out of the depot without two essentials — my TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) with which I communicate from the train to the control centre, and a bunch of keys,” she says.

Metro Rail trains are state-of-the-art, yet they need to be unlocked with these keys before the train begins its journey for the day. Next, she hops onto the driver’s cabin, turns on the light, and walks through the train, and checks all the coaches.

The compact driver cabin wears the look of a large gaming console with colourful buttons, speedometers, and screens. She needs to check every device and then prepare the train. The pressure must build to the right level. After that, she looks into the functioning of everything: the wiper, the opening and closing of the train doors, the braking system, horn, whistle, the passenger announcement system, and the cameras in all coaches.

If all is well, she picks up her TETRA and says: “Train set ready. Preparation completed. Ready for movement.” Then, the train will be gradually taken by a ramp to the Koyambedu Metro Rail station. And the four-coach train is primed and ready for its first trip at 5 a.m.

Nearly 2.9 lakh people board and alight from these trains at 41 stations across the 54-km network. The stations and the trains bustle with commuters. But there is one place from which Chennai Metro Rail Limited keeps an eye on every station and train — the Operations Control Centre.

A giant screen, fitted on top of the massive room, displays lines of varying hues. Scores of computers below this screen lay out similar patterns. This is the signalling system, the backbone of train operations. Manned by numerous vigilant workers, these monitors show the train movement in each section.