How many people can you fit in an unreserved coach ?

Wonder why the Mumbai folks make such a hue & cry about their locals being so crowded. Here is a nugget from the Railways which leads one to believe that the average unreserved compartment in the Mail/Express is twice as crowded!! .. Read further to find out how ...

From Hindu

Referring to the economics of train operations, he said a mail or express train with 16 coaches earns Rs 72 crore a year. Its eight sleeper, four unreserved and three AC classes earn Rs 19 crore, Rs 51 crore and Rs two crore respectively.

So here is the per coach breakup for each class per day
AC : 2/3 = 0.66 Crs/365 = Rs18,265
Sleeper :19/8 = 2.37 Crs/365 = Rs 65,068
Unreserved : 51/4 = 12.75 Crs/365 = Rs 3,49,915

And now assuming that the train travels for about 900 Km and the average unreserved passenger travels 100 Kms ( i.e pays a Rs 35 as fare ) we have 35*9=Rs 315 as the amount paid for the entire 900 Km.

So at any given time the average number of persons in the unreserved coach is 3,49,915 /315 = 1100 . Now that is double of Mumbai Local Peak which is about 500 .

Now you can play around with these numbers, decrease the average Km per passenger, increase the distance travelled by the train, double its frequency (i.e consider that the above figures are for a pair of up/down trains) , but you would still find that worst case it is still at least as crowded as the Mumbai Local at its peak....

Now did the railways get their statistics wrong ? Or are the Mumbai folks just a bunch of whiners ? ;)