Snag hits Delhi Metro's Blue Line for second consecutive day, commuters face hardship

Commuters faced problems travelling in the Delhi Metro's Blue Line Thursday morning as train services were affected on the entire stretch owing to a signalling issue apparently due to a "software problem", a day after the corridor faced a similar technical snag twice.

The DMRC also said that "16 trips were cancelled and 20 were delayed on the Blue Line (out of 786 planned)" due to the signalling issue Wednesday.

The Blue Line connects Dwarka to Noida and Vaishali and is one of the busiest segments of the Delhi Metro network. Vaishali section branches off from Yamuna Bank, an intersection station.

"There was some signalling issue which intermittently surfaced on the Yamuna Bank to Vaishali section of the Blue Line between 9 AM to 11 AM, affecting punctuality of services on the entire Blue Line," a senior DMRC official said.

The DMRC from 10:50 AM onwards introduced temporary arrangement for train services till the problem was solved.

He said a temporary arrangement for train services was made till the problem is solved.

"Train services between Dwarka and Noida were run in one go with a frequency of around 4 minutes and 30 seconds on an automatic mode through central control, i.e., Operations Control Centre," the official said.

The regular frequency of trains on Dwarka-Noida line is 2 minutes and 30 seconds, he added.

"Services between Yamuna Bank and Vaishali stations were being run in an independent loop with a frequency of around 5 minutes and 30 seconds through local control (at station level)," he said.

Several commuters took to Twitter and complained of delays. Many said that their trains were stuck for as long as 30 minutes.

"The metro was standing at Nirman Vihar for around 30 mins today morning and the Noida metro was also moving very slow," tweeted Priya Singh, a commuter.

Another commuter tweeted, "...I used to reach my destination BVP college from Vaishali metro in 60 minutes. Today I was struck in between many times and even didn't reach half my destination in 60 minutes."
Executive Director, Corporate Communications, Anuj Dayal said, "The signalling issue pertaining to the Blue Line appeared to be a software related problem and the company, Siemens, whose system is operating on this line, has been informed about this."