Indians Railways all set to roll out 'zero-based' timetable, may reduce halts of all express, mail trains

As the Indian Railways prepares to go back to normal operations, the new norm seems to be far from the pre-COVID times. The railways is preparing a 'zero-based' time-table for all trains. This means that the schedule and frequency of the earlier time-tabled passenger trains will be revised giving the railways flexibility to reduce the number of halts of mail/express trains and some other trains as well.

New Delhi:TheIndian Railways is preparing a 'zero-based' time table for all of its trains, aiming to bring a change in the train operations for the post-COVID times, informed an official, on Monday.

Railways is working from the scratch over schedule and frequency of the trains, with an aim to increase the speed as well as punctuality rate after the resumption of passenger services.

"It's an annual process as we make some modifications in the time-table. This year, we are going for 'zero-based' time table, starting from scratch and will optimize different things. For the maintenance corridor, we are trying to make it more realistic and in a practical manner," Ministry of Railways Spokesperson, RD Bajpai told ETV Bharat.

Earlier this week, Railway Board Chairman Vinod Kumar Yadav mentioned that the plan to roll out the new time table was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic which led to a nationwide lockdown, but it will be implemented soon.

In the new time table, Indian Railways is planning to reduce the number of halts of the mail/express trains after assessing the requirements of passengers for those stations. It is being expected that it would help in the reduction of travel time as trains can run non-stop for longer distances. Along with this, dedicated paths are being prepared for the freight operations aiming to increase the speed of these trains.

As a new initiative, Indian Railways has planned for compaction of existing trains having similar speed for better performance in the punctuality rate of these trains.

"We are trying to club the same speed trains in one group. If we would be able to do this, then there would be a lot of spare time for other trains. It's a technical exercise, we are taking opinions from experts as well," said the railway official.

"We are also trying to maintain the timings of some existing trains which are convenient for passengers, and as per the requirements of states and zonal railways," he further added.

Yadav had said that the new time table is going to include the 151 trains that are to be operated by private players.

For the private trains, Railways have identified 100 origin-destination pairs which have been grouped into 12 clusters such that each cluster requires the operation of about a minimum of 12 trains.

The Railway Spokesperson told ETV Bharat that each private player has been given the timings to run its trains from the designated cluster in their bidding document.