Mobile phones will not work on Metro for three months
Going live on Facebook or posting a selfie on a Whatsapp group during your maiden ride on the underground metro rail network on Sunday, like you did on the elevated corridor, would not be possible.
By : migrator
Update: 2017-05-12 17:39 GMT
Chennai
Your phones would be dysfunctional in both the underground stations and trains, not just when Chief Minister Edappadi K Palanisamy inaugurates the service, but for another three months. CMRL (Chennai metro rail limited) has yet to develop the infrastructure for mobile networks to function on the UG stations and on the tunnels.
Chief general manager, CMRL, V K Singh, admitted that it would take up to three months to develop the infrastructure. “Even DMRC (Delhi metro rail corporation) did not have mobile phones working on the underground stretch when it was launched,” L Narasim Prasad, director system and operations, CMRL, said, during an embedded press tour on Thursday morning at Thirumangalam underground station where the inauguration would take place.
“We have issued work orders to the service provider. The work would be completed in three months,” Prasad added. Notably, when the facilities are developed, metro users would also have wi-fi access in the stations. However, CMRL has exclusive LAN (local area network) and tetra bandwidth for its internal communications.
Download app and hop on to Uber, Ola from stations
Having learnt lessons the hard way from the elevated corridor, CMRL has gone out of the way to tie up with app-based cab aggregators (like Ola and Uber) to ensure last mile connectivity for travellers. Narasim Prasad, Director (Systems & Operations), CMRL, said they would tie up with private cab aggregators, referring to the Bangaluru model where one of the leading app based cab aggregators has been allowed to set up a booth outside the railway station.
The aggregators would be given a dedicated parking space outside the stations where the cabs would be available for even people without smartphones to book cabs in a way it is done at model conventional taxi stands. Cabs asides, CMRL has also got in touch with MTC to increase bus connectivity to its stations. “We are also in touch with bus authority (read as MTC) to integrate the various modes of transport,” Rajeev Narayan Dwivedi, Director (projects) CMRL said.
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