Thaindian News

New Delhi, Aug 5 (IANS) On commuter requests for increased frequency, the Airport Metro Express Line (AMEL) has reduced the time between two trains from 20 to 15 minutes on the corridor during peak hours, a Delhi Airport Metro Express Private Limited (DAMEPL) official said Friday.

DAMEPL, a Reliance Infrastructure-led consortium that operates the Airport Express, said the service frequency has been increased from 20 minutes to 15 minutes from Friday between 7 a.m and 11 a.m during the peak hours.

“Receiving requests to increase service frequency from the commuters, DAMEPL has increase the train frequency to 15 minutes at the peak hours of the day,” DAMEPL official said.

“In a feedback survey, many passengers had requested to increase the frequency. Following this, we have increased the frequency during peak hours. This frequency will be implemented for the whole day by the end of this month,” the official said.

Five months ago when Delhi Metro chief E. Sreedharan held a surprise inspection of the Airport Metro Express line he found plenty of faults — from frequency and passenger amenities.

Spending over three hours inspecting the 23-km line, he demanded that frequency of one-train-every-20-minutes needed to change.

Built at a cost of Rs.5,700 crore, the line has six stations — New Delhi Railway Station, Shivaji Stadium, Dhaula Kuan, Delhi Aero City, Indira Gandhi International Airport and Dwarka Sec-21.

“Out of the 6 stations, the Dhaula Kuan and Delhi Aero city which are not operational will soon start operations,” the DAMEPL official added.

Delhi Metro is responsible for the civil work and Reliance Infrastructure will operate the line for 30 years and share the revenues.