Railways – Elongated or Multi-Level Platforms, Real-time seat availability, New railway terminus - Tambaram, Chennai

•Major cities platforms are overcrowded at morning arrivals and night departures. Hence need for more platforms is needed to run and park more trains. Platforms at Chennai central & Chennai Egmore at early morning arrivals trains wait in main line for several hours in slow duration they move in with less than 1 km difference as too much delay in getting platforms. Most of the trains are put up one or two signal before entering station and made to wait for platform availability to arrive. All the issues can be addressed with new solutions below and same may be considered for other cities.
•Elongated platforms continuously with space for multiple trains to park in same track one after another. New concept of floor model stations with trains parked in ground and first floor above platforms for large parking space and future demand in next 10 years by erecting pillars in existing platforms and creating parallel floor on top to park trains at major platform demand stations. Setting up at destination stations will help. Pass through stations will be difficult to implement but if done will be major infra challenge. L&T and other major infra companies should be consulted if same can be implemented.
•Seat availability post departure of trains several hours ago by online update of vacancies by TT with laptop or tablet for passengers to book tickets for trains which have moved out of stations. TT should immediately move RAC to berths once seats are expected to be empty in long distance trains after some stops based on passengers getting down. Even if few hours only TT should focus on giving priority to RAC to move to normal berths. For example many passengers get down at Renigunta, Andhra to go to Thirupathi but many Chennai residents want to get into train at Renigunta, Andhra to go to Chennai and as train is empty but also tickets issued at counters are only unreserved tickets since real time booking not available of departed trains from base station. Many get into trains with unreserved tickets because of partially empty sleeper coaches and TT fining most of them. If coach is free then give reserved seats at counters with exact charges why should everyone pay fine and how many can Railways check if entire train partially occupied by unreserved tickets. Giving RAC seats to new passengers who board in in between stations with real time seat availability based on TT input. TT should carry hand held bar code reader to check ticket details. Not sure of the idea but please discuss to increase revenue.
•Time taken between Perambur, Chennai to Chennai Egmore needs to be reduced by increasing speed of trains in this short stretch. Do any track strengthening to speed up trains in this sections. Too much time wasted in this section for such a small distance. Mumbai suburban railway team must review and handle operations in Chennai to increase speed and performance.
•It is high time trains start departure from Tambaram station to mark 3rd station in Chennai. Compared to Mumbai in spite of high traffic Chennai needs one more departure and arrival station to reduce loads of Chennai central and Egmore. Some trains instead of Egmore start departure from tambaram towards Mumbai, Bangalore and Trichy or other southern districts of TamilNadu it will boost growth in that area and expansion of city and easier Railway operations instead of congestion in some stations and reduce traffic and seamless movement to city.
•Railways – finance and legal team to solve Chennai MRTS issue for a distance of 500metres and govt legal team and mediator.