Understanding Mumbai Railways

Transportation becomes an area of utmost importance when a place is being judged on its standard of living. Ever since the invention of the wheel, the human race has been obsessed with developing faster, cheaper and safer modes of transport. Hence what subject could we have found for an analysis better than one of the biggest transport bodies in the world. A structure that accommodates 6.3 billion people every day. Spread across 319 kilometers, the Mumbai Railways was our topic for research.

The objective was to determine within a set of fixed parameters the most efficient Railway Line (among Central, Western and Harbour). Consequently the results would also help us understand which route lacks in which aspect and where development is needed.

To attain this objective we surveyed 75 regular commuters of every Railway Line. The total number of respondents was 225. The Target Group was 16 to 60 as several people within this age bracket regularly travel to schools / colleges / offices. These people were interviewed during both normal as well as rush hours. Our on field research was conducted on 18 February, 2008, from 14.00 to 22.00. Equal importance was given to both major and minor railways stations and we studied a fair mix of both. 57% of respondents were women. The survey was descriptive in nature, so as to enable us to understand the problems faced by people in their respective railway lines

We were a team of 6 and decided to allocate one Railway Line per two members.

The respondents were asked to rate their respective Railway station on six parameters as �good’, �ok’ or �bad’. The parameters were Cleanliness, Safety, Toilet Facilities, Availability of Refreshments, Average Time Taken to Buy a Ticket and Punctuality of Trains. We noted their age and gender and requested for more comments to help us in getting a better understanding of the issues.

The following are our findings:

Cleanliness:

1st. Harbour

2nd. Western

3rd. Central

Safety:

1st. Western

2nd. Harbour

3rd. Central

Toilet Facilities:

1st. Western

2nd. Harbour

3rd. Central

Refreshments:

1st. Western

2nd. Harbour

3rd. Central

Availability of Tickets:

1st. Harbour

2nd. Western

3rd. Central

Punctuality of Trains:

1st. Western

2nd. Harbour

3rd. Central

From the above results we concluded that overall, regular commuters are most satisfied with services offered by Western Railways.