IAF air show | Metro Rail passengers put to hardship as crowds overwhelm trains and stations

Chennai Metro Rail stations crowded with visitors heading to IAF air show, leading to long waits and confusion.

Expecting the roads to be congested, thousands of visitors to the IAF air show on Sunday opted to use the Chennai Metro Rail system to get to the venue, only to find that the Metro stations were equally crowded.

With lakhs of spectators looking to get a glimpse of the aerial spectacle, some stations were packed, and commuters struggled to enter and exit them. The Government Estate station, which is close to the Marina beach, witnessed unimaginable crowding.

Commuters had to endure a long wait to enter and exit the station. The trains were running at full capacity from the early hours of the day, and stations including Thirumangalam, Chennai Central, Chennai Airport and Koyambedu were teeming with passengers, sources said. 

Jayanthi Mala, a resident of Nandambakkam who took a train from Alandur to Government Estate, said the lack of sufficient gates caused a lot of inconvenience to commuters as the existing gates could not handle the crowd. “One of the key issues is that the Automatic Fare Collection (AFC) gates are too slow and unable to handle the surge in passenger traffic. We don’t have adequate gates for handling such mega events. Had there been additional gates, the situation could have been managed better,” a source said. 

Around 11 a.m., since the crowd could not be cleared, the authorities initially decided to let people with tokens pass through the staff gate instead of the AFC gates. Around noon, as the crowding continued, the staff opened all the AFC gates and allowed people to board the trains. “At the station where they exited, the staff swiped their cards or collected money and got them the tokens or paper QR,” another source said.

According to officials of Chennai Metro Rail Limited, services were increased at 2 p.m. to ease crowding. There was a train every 3.5 minutes between Washermenpet and AG-DMS, and every seven minutes between Chennai Airport and Wimco Nagar.

After the air show drew to a close, commuters walked from the beach to the Government Estate station, exacerbating the crowding at the station. Gunasekar, who came all the way from Vandalur to witness the event, said more staff should have been deployed.