Less blood on WR tracks

MUMBAI: The Western Railway's sustained campaign against trespassing appears to be paying dividends. Figures recently released by WR show that the number of deaths caused by illegal track-crossing fell by about 20% from 511 in 2009-10 to 426 in 2010-11.
During the same period, the incidence of non-fatal trespassing accidents on WR's 60-km suburban stretch between Churchgate and Virar decreased marginally from 1,101 to 1,048.
The drop, officials said, was achieved through a series of awareness campaigns and with the assistance of various NGOs, school and college students, Scouts and civil defence personnel. Even railway officials' wives lent a hand by placing banners at stations and, in a Gandhigiri-like step, by handing out roses to commuters.
Apart from these, said officials, what helped were the awareness advertisements (WR released ads pegged on cricket during the World Cup), radio jingles, SMS campaigns and announcements.
According to WR, 31% or 461 of the total 1,474 trespassing accidents in 2010-11 occurred at Borivli, Goregaon, Bandra, Jogeshwari and Kandivli; more than 345 or 24% happened at Andheri, Malad, Bhayander, Vile Parle and Santa Cruz; and the rest 45% at the remaining stations.
Most trespassing accidents occur at level crossing gates, near slum clusters, at platforms and at the edge of the stations. At all these problem spots, track-crossing came down last year.
The accident figures are expected to reduce further by end-2012 once two planned road over-bridges are built, removing the need for three of the four level crossings (LC) between Andheri and Goregaon. "The level crossing at Bandra is not being used by the public regularly. Once the new ROBs come up, the remaining three LCs will be walled," a railway official said.
Dividers between platforms and walls along track boundaries also helped curb illegal track-crossing. "More than 22km of track dividers have been erected and less than 8km of the 120km wall is left," said the official, adding that they face problems near encroachments. Frequently, these walls are found with breaches and the railways have to rebuild them.
To check track-crossing at platforms, WR has diligently increased the number of foot over-bridges over the last five years. Today, the route has 93 FOBs, of which 20 are BMC bridges.
"The emphasis is to first provide infrastructural inputs like FOBs, dividers and walls, and then step up awareness campaigns," the official said.