Southern Railway has announced major changes in the schedule of Suburban trains in Chennai with no trains plying after 10 pm following the night curfew imposed by the Chennai corporation. The first service will begin after 4 a.m. and 86 Sub urban services will be operated on Sunday as the administration has announced a Sunday lockdown in the city.
Southern Railway communique said that only 434 Suburban trains instead of the regular 700 trains will run on weekdays. There will be 150 services in the MMC- Arakkonam route, 64 services on the MMC-Gummidipoondi route, 68 services on the Beach-Velachery route and 152 services on the Beach-Tambaram route.
On Sunday, 32 services will be run on the MMC-Arakkonam route, 24 services on the MMC-Sullurupeta route, 12 services on the Beach-Velachery route and 18 services on the Beach-Chengalpattu route.
Meanwhile, long distance bus services stand disrupted in Tamil Nadu after the government banned night travel in the state. After the new restrictions preventing night travel for long distance buses came into effect from Tuesday, the buses started leaving from Koyambedu at 4.30 a.m.
While night curfew has been imposed in Tamil Nadu after 10 p.m., the buses have to reach their destinations before that time and hence the early departure from Chennai.
However most of the buses which commenced their journey from Koyambedu bus terminal on Tuesday and Wednesday had minimum occupancy and in the Chennai-Nagercoil long distance bus service, the occupancy was less than 15 % of the capacity.
M Selvarajan, senior transport coordinator at Koyambedu mofussil bus stand while speaking to IANS said, "Most of the buses which commenced services from the Koyambedu terminal had a very low number of people. People seem to be not inclined to travel during day time in buses as the whole day is lost and the hot weather is another reason which reduces the volume of people travelling in long distance buses."
The last buses to Nagercoil, Tuticorin and Tirunelveli left Koyambedu bus stand before 8 am on Wednesday while almost all the buses for Coimbatore left by 10.30 am.