Delhi Metro stations are admired for their adequate number of escalators and elevators that make commuting easier for passengers. But by March next year, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation will also have installed travelators.

A DMRC spokesperson said that a decision has been taken to install travelators to ease the transit for passengers on foot-overbridges that are longer than 300 metres at interchange stations.

The number of interchange stations in the Delhi Metro network would go up to 27 once the Pink Line (Majlis Park-Shiv Vihar) and Magenta Line (Janakpuri West-Botanical Garden) become operational by March 28, 2018. At two interchange points — Dhaula Kuan and Rajouri Garden — the existing and upcoming stations are located at a distance from each other. Though they would be connected by foot-overbridges, passengers moving from one to the other would have the friendly facility of travelators.

According to the original plan, travelators were to have been installed at Dhaula Kuan-Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus stations, at Rajouri Garden station and between Shivaji Park and Punjabi Bagh West stations as the distance between two stations was over the stipulated 300 metres. It was, however, later decided that interchange facilities would not be provided between Punjabi Bagh West (Pink Line) and Shivaji Park (Green Line) stations.

The longest FOB connecting two metro stations is going to come up between the Dhaula Kuan station of the Airport Express Line and the Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus station catering to the Pink Line (Line 7). The distance between these two stations is almost a kilometre, 920 metres to be exact, and could prove quite a trek for passengers accessing one line from the other. Also, since Dhaula Kuan station is on the Airport Express Line, a large number of passengers changing trains there would be air passengers with baggage, making the availability of travelators even more important.

"There will be total 26 travelators on the FOB, with 13 on either side. The travelators will be 7.1 metres wide and their lengths will vary between 50 metres and 100 metres," the DMRC spokesperson said. He added that civil work for the construction of the FOB was in progress and pillars were being installed at present.

"The difference in the levels between the two stations is about eight metres and the FOB has been designed to take care of that difference," the spokesperson explained. "This FOB will provide better connectivity between Pink Line and Airport Express Line." The average daily ridership on the Airport Express line is around 50,000 and the projected passenger count at Durgabai Deshmukh South Campus station is 11,706.

The travelators at Rajouri Garden station would connect the existing station on the Blue Line (Dwarka Sector 21-Vaishali/ Noida City Centre) and the upcoming station for the Pink Line. The FOB would span 310 metres and would have four travelators.