US institute to advise on security for Mumbai trains, buses

MUMBAI - The Maharashtra government Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding with Los Angeles-based Mineta Transportation Institute for its advice on world class security to Mumbai’s public transportation systems.

“We are confident that by this memorandum of understanding, Mumbaikars will be provided with world-class security on the public trains and buses, including the new metro railway, monorail, and later the state transport buses,” said Chief Minister Ashok Chavan, currently on an official tour of US, Singapore and Malaysia, according to a official statement here,

The MoU follows a visit by a high-level delegation of the Mumbai Metropolitan Region Development Authority (MMRDA) to MTI in January this year, where they held discussions with MTI experts about security and crisis management for Mumbai’s upcoming new metro rail system.

The ambitious metro-rail project envisages three new elevated rail lines totalling over 60 km, along with a monorail. Considering Mumbai’s historic possibilities for accidents, terrorism, and other incidents, the MMRDA delegation had gone on a study mission to MTI.

MTI’s National Transportation Security Center of Excellence director Brian Michael Jenkins then said that Mumbai has a very large rail and bus system, moving about 11 million people each day but “it is no longer adequate to serve a growing metropolitan area that now has 22 million people”.

“Therefore, the city is facing a huge problem with mobility. But it also wants to ensure safety and security for its passengers, especially because Mumbai and the surrounding region have lost nearly 1,000 people to terrorist attacks in the last decade,” he added.