Traffic police and Railway Protection Force have decided to deploy additional personnel during peak hours to regulate traffic outside Egmore Railway station.
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

A coordinated effort involving various stakeholders is being taken to reduce the traffic congestion outside Egmore Railway Station.

A meeting was held earlier this week in which officials of the Greater Chennai Traffic Police (GCTP), Railway Protection Force (RPF), and Southern Railway, worked out measures to ease the congestion. The new measures are expected to be implemented in 10 days, they said.

The meeting followed the publication of a news report titled “Road near Egmore Railway Station chock-a-block with traffic, haphazard parking” under the ‘Stories from the Road’ column in The Hindu on May 25, Sunday. Following the article, Deputy Commissioner of Police Traffic S. Megalina Iden held a meeting with the officers of Railway Police Force, Southern Railway and licensed auto drivers’ association at the Egmore railway station on Tuesday.

During the meeting, the officers discussed various factors that led to traffic chaos on the premises and outside the station and instructions were issued to regulate auto parking and streamline the traffic.

Ms. Iden said, “Earlier, there were four gates to the station and three of them are closed now due to development works. There is only one gate now for entry and exit. The passengers who come by personal vehicles enter inside through one gate. Place for pick up and drop is also not adequate. So, we have requested Railway authorities to allot more space so that we can make available three lanes inside the premises, and move ahead the space for unloading and loading by pick-up vehicles.”

More traffic personnel

Further, the traffic police and RPF have decided to deploy additional personnel during peak hours to regulate the traffic here.

Egmore Railway Station Director S. Ramesh said, “We are going to open two more exit points and deploy RPF personnel. The GCTP also has agreed to deploy traffic personnel and patrol vehicles. We are exploring the option of giving one more entry point by pushing the space for parcel vehicles a little bit inside the construction site in the west.”

The Railway authorities also suggested to the traffic police to introduce one-way traffic on the Gandhi—Irwin Road during peak hours for seamless traffic and to reduce density of vehicles. Since autos are being parked near the restaurants, it blocks the bus stand, and results in heavy traffic on the road. “The width of the road is very small and not viable for two-way traffic,” said an officer posted there.

Approximately, over 1.3 lakh passengers use the Egmore Railway Station daily and over 70% of them use the main entrance of the station.

“We are working to resolve the issue in a week or 10 days,” said Mr. Ramesh.