Mumbai’s extensive metro system relies on our high-performance escalators, made in India, to keep passengers moving efficiently through its stations.
Life in Mumbai, a megacity with 13.5 million inhabitants, takes place on two levels. Cars, taxi rickshaws, motorcycles and pedestrians squeeze between and past large concrete pillars at street level. Meanwhile, above them, the spotlessly clean metro darts from station to station on an elevated rail system.
The 2A line officially opened almost two years ago, and three metro lines are currently in operation. Everything on the new line is painted yellow – from the roofs of the stations and the signaling system to the trains themselves.
The Mumbai Metro is a huge project – construction is taking place in three phases over 15 years. Designed to ease the city’s transport problems, a quarter of the network will be underground, and the rest will run on elevated tracks hosted on pillars that tower above the streets. Once completed, the metro will consist of 16 lines covering a total distance of 357 kilometers and serving 286 stations.
On the 18-kilometer Yellow Line, our team has installed 103 Schindler 9700 escalators in 17 stations. This particular escalator model, produced at our plant in Pune, is designed for intense usage and can transport over 200,000 passengers per day.
Our local team of service technicians conducts regular maintenance checks along the entire line. Routine maintenance work can only be performed at night when the metro is not in use. However, if the Technical Operations Center or metro staff report a problem, the technicians appear on-site swiftly – usually resolving issues in under an hour. This happens between 10 and 15 times a month. "We know how important the metro is for the people of Mumbai," explains Sachin Rasam, one of our service technicians. "The escalators have to run smoothly to allow them to move to and from the platforms easily – and we make sure that’s the case."
The Indian government is investing billions in urban infrastructure projects to improve living standards and ease congestion. Our team in India has consistently contributed to projects – like metro systems and airports in Delhi, Bangalore, Mumbai, and Pune – not just by supplying and installing equipment, but also by carrying out maintenance.
In fact, Schindler’s portfolio consists of thousands of units across the country, each one making an average of 700 journeys per year. Tarunesh Mathur, our Senior Vice President of Existing Installations Business, explains: "Technical errors can happen; unfortunately, it’s not possible to completely prevent them. But we can respond quickly to remedy them if they do occur. We want passengers to feel safe when they use our elevators and escalators – that’s our top priority."