I recently had a joyride namma metro with kids in Bangalore, and these are my first impressions.
- Wow!
- Wow! This can be a game changer!
- The trains are too short. It was jam packed on Sunday, and all trains had only 3 carriages. Just add more carriages at high traffic times already! Thankfully, the platforms are big enough to accomadate longer trains.
- Plastic rfid? tokens are not optimal. Need some cheap, disposable tickets which need not be retrieved from passengers. NYC dispenses paper tickets with a magnetic swipe. It also introduces a choke point when people exit, needing to return these tokens.
- Buying a ticket is painful. Only one-way tickets are stupid. Just introduce day passes and round trips already! WTF are the metro guys waiting for??
- Are the turnstiles 2-way? They need to manage exit better, only a few turnstiles were available, while the entry turnstiles stood empty but unavailable.
All in all, it seems like a 50/50 job - what's been done looks very promising, but is marred by typical Indian "jugaad" - the bad kind. Hopefully, it will be fixed and soon.