The 20-km stretch of Mumbai Metro lines opening on Sunday will offer many firsts for the city with platforms having automatic screen doors, driverless trains and bicycle-carrying coaches. “The novelty at the new Metro stations are the platform screen doors, a safety feature that prevents anyone from getting close to the edge of the platform or jump onto tracks. The screen doors open only when the trains arrive,” a MMRDA official said.

“It has been planned to prevent suicides and accidents due to passenger movement, control sound, avoid littering on tracks.” The other feature is that the new trains are automated and driverless. “The technology employed in driverless trains is called Communication Based Train Control (CBTC). The driverless trains require minimum human intervention and eliminate the possibilities of human errors. In this mode, trains can be controlled entirely from the operations and command centre of Mumbai Metro,” an official explained. However, for now, the driverless mode will remain switched off.