Punctuality of trains improves to over 82 per cent

New Delhi, Sep 7 (PTI) Railways have bettered the overallpunctuality rate after improvement on the Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai route, with mail and express trains improvingtheir performance by over four per cent to clock 80.83 percent punctuality during April-August. The overall punctuality rate of the railways hasincreased to 82.09 per cent in August from 81.62 per cent inthe corresponding period last year. The punctuality performance of mail/express trainsduring April-August this year was 80.83 per cent as comparedto 76.66 per cent for the corresponding period last year, anincrease of 4.17 per cent. Besides, the punctuality rate of local trains betweenApril and August this year was 77.45 per cent as compared to73.99 per cent for the same period in 2015. The overall punctuality rate has improved because of aseries of steps being undertaken for improvement in the761-km-long Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai route, said a senior RailwayMinistry official of the Mobility Directorate. Flooded with complaints of late-running of trains,railways has created a Mobility Directorate to improvepunctuality in passenger service and speed up freightmovement. The busy Ghaziabad-Mughalsarai corridor, which includesthe Allahabad junction, involves movement of 120 trains in aday. Other important railway stations in this route areAligarh, Moradabad, Tundla, Bareilly, Etawah, Kanpur Central,Lucknow, Mirzapur and Varanasi. Though there are many factors affecting punctualitylike over-saturated route with maximum train movement,technical glitches and asset (engine and coach) or tractionfailures, judicious steps are being taken to decongest theroute as well as improving assets, said the official. Broadly, trains lose punctuality due to factors relatedto its internal working as well as external factors of whichrailways is not in control of. (MORE) PTI ARU KIS DVKIS