Western Railway (WR) will soon launch an internal mobile and web application that will track the performance of lifts and escalators in real time and notify about any malfunctions. The surveillance system will cover all 122 escalators and 69 lifts on the Churchgate to Dahanu route.
As per reports, maintenance staff will fix the faulty escalators after receiving an alarm on the application through centralised control. The operational data of all escalators and lifts will be recorded on the server. If scheduled maintenance is overdue, the system will sound an alert.
Escalators and lifts were installed to make commuting easier, but there have been many reports of malfunctioning equipment. In 2023, there were almost 193,000 stops made by the 106 escalators between Churchgate and Virar.
According to a previous report, each escalator on Western Railway breaks down five times a day. This app will help reduce their downtime and make sure of proper labour utilisation. This means fewer employees will be needed to run more lifts and escalators.
Railway authorities claim porters sometimes activate the escalator's emergency stop button to charge passengers carrying bags. This is common at stations used by long-distance trains. Thieves also push the emergency button, making the escalators inoperable until maintenance personnel fix them.
Sending out a dedicated employee for every elevator or escalator is not cost-effective. For this, a web-based GSM alarm monitoring system has been created for lifts and escalators. This will be connected to the mobile application.
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