Delhi Metro: Left is not Right
The Delhi Metro is one of the wonders of the Ancient World (or at least so it seemed to me when I first discovered it in 2005). You descend from the often dirty, cacophonous, teeming world of India's capital with its bustling millions and suddenly you find yourself in an air-conditioned, high-tech, spotless, gleaming world almost empty of people. For some of us Westerners who need respite from the Eastern street, going down into the Metro is positively a vacation (from regular India). Even though the fares are inexpensive (even by Indian standards) the metro in 2005 was fairly empty. Maybe, the Delhians hadn't got used to it yet. [Flick user David Lisbona]
I have recently started (since Monday, 6 September 2010) using the metro's Yellow Line to commute to my new office in Connaught Place (CP). It's a good option, given that it takes less time and has plenty of trains. But is that enough? India is always short of resources, partly because we manage to proliferate quite rapidly. If you have travelled in a Delhi bus on select busy routes during peak hours, you can easily get the idea of crowd that you have to face in these trains. At around 7.45pm, it takes at least 5 minutes in a queue before you get to enter the Rajiv Chowk metro station. And you get some space to stand, often leaning on fellow passengers. So far, I haven't managed to get a seat in the metro service.
Let alone the crowd, the signs at the Rajiv Chowk metro station are also not very helpful. On my first day, I kept looking for the Yellow Line platform. The sign showed it's the station on the lower floor, and the platforms over there had huge signages saying "Blue Line Platform" and "Exit", with a direction. These signs made me assume that the platform where I was standing was for the Blue Line route. The signages were actually meant for directing passengers to the Blue Line platform. To avoid any miscommunication, the signage should have read "Way to Blue Line Platform". I don't know if it's just me who got confused due to the signs, but any professional interface designer will agree that the signs are faulty.
A rookie driver (I am sure the driver was a rookie) of Delhi Metro gave me the latest chance to criticize. On Wednesday, on my way to CP from Hauz Khas, the metro stopped before the platforms arrived and then reached the appropriate halt points with jolts due to regular brakes. The driver seemed to be unaware that there's something called "Right". For the announcement system and indicators, the platforms were always to the left of the train. As a matter of fact, there were just one or two platforms on the stretch that were to the left side of the train. Thankfully, the doors opened on the correct side despite wrong announcements and indicators.
It's a relief that these errors cannot lead to some tragedy, but it's a sign of carelessness. The metro management cannot do anything about the population but they can, of course, increase the number of trains. If that's too much to ask for, they can surely remove erroneous signs and teach their drivers when left is not right.
