Mumbai is building an extensive rapid transit train system, commonly referred to as Mumbai Metro, which will comprise of 12 lines stretching over 201km and 172 stations when fully completed. Currently, as of November 2025, 4 lines are operational either fully or partially. As with any such metro system with multiple lines, there are several interchange stations where passengers can transfer between different lines. Typically, the success of any metro system depends on how convenient it is for someone to go from any station to any other station on any line seamlessly.

New York City Subway is a great example of a thoughtfully integrated metro system where you can enter from any station and travel to any of the 472 stations across 27 lines without ever having to step out of the system, so much so that there is an actual competition to traverse the entire Subway system in minimum time! Mumbai Metro, on the other hand, is the complete opposite, where almost every interchange station is designed such that you have to exit and re-enter every time you want to change from one line to another line. This adds three layers of inefficiencies –

1) waste of time: a passenger wanting to go from, for example, Saki Naka on Line 1 to MIDC on Line 3, just a short two station journey, has to first go through security check and tap in at the turnstile at Saki Naka to enter, get off at Marol Naka interchange station, tap out, walk to the other line’s station, go through security check again, tap in again and tap out again while exiting at the MIDC station. Multiply this by millions of passengers traversing interchange stations daily and you have thousands of human-hours wasted in the extra steps.

2) waste of money: Mumbai Metro runs on a fare system based on distance slabs such as 10 rupees for 0-3 km, 20 rupees for 4-10 km and so on. Taking the same example as above, if the interchange was inter-connected between the lines, Saki Naka to MIDC would cost 10 rupees. But since the passenger has to pay separately for both lines, now it costs 20 rupees as they get charged the 10 rupee minimum fare on both lines. Doing this twice a day, 30 days a month for a daily commuter adds up quickly and discourages many from using the metro.

3) waste of resources: every station has a number of turnstiles for passengers to tap their tickets in and out to enter and exit, and a number of security staff deployed to check everyone entering. If every passenger who is just switching from one line to another line at an interchange station also has to tap out and tap in again, and go through security again, it means requiring more turnstiles and staff than what would be needed to handle just the passengers actually starting or ending their journey at that station, resulting in more cost for machines and salaries of staff.

Why is the Mumbai Metro so disjointed?

Let’s address the obvious question- how did the Mumbai Metro end up being such a messy design? The official answer is that the Mumbai metro system is operated by three different agencies – Line 1 by Mumbai Metro One Private Limited (MMOPL), Line 3 by Mumbai Metro Rail Corporation (MMRC), while the remaining lines by Mumbai Metropolitan Regional Development Authority (MMRDA). The reasons for having three operators for one city’s transit system are political and best left beyond the scope of this discussion. However, there is enough precedence in history that this should not be a blocker to building an integrated metro system. Once again we look at the New York Subway as a classic example – the NYC Subway as we see today is actually three independent systems built by three competing agencies- Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), Brooklyn-Manhattan Transit Corporation (BMT) and Independent Subway System (IND), however designed with co-operation between them such that there are connections between their lines at every interchange station. Similarly, MMOPL, MMRC and MMRDA could have co-operated and designed their interchange stations to allow connections from within fare controlled areas.

The other reason often quoted is that Mumbai is a congested city and there are space constraints to build better interchange stations. While this is certainly true, other similarly congested cities across the world have successfully managed to build seamless interchanges even within the most space constrained locations with smart engineering and long-term thinking. A great example of this is in London where their latest and the most ambitious project – the Elizabeth Line – built cutting across the heart of central London provides direct interchange to seven other London Underground lines that were built a century ago through a series of tunnels, escalators, and ramps so seamless that one would think they were all built at the same time.

So, the question then arises – is it still possible to salvage the situation and make Mumbai Metro more connected and easier to use for the millions who will depend on it for their daily commute? The answer is, yes!

Building Better Interchanges

The Mumbai Metro system, when all the currently under-construction lines are built, will have more than ten major interchange stations. We will focus on four of them which are already built in rather inefficient ways with design change recommendations to improve them. It is to be acknowledged that all these proposals involve additional costs, however it would be justified to consider them for the long-term greater good for the citizens of Mumbai, and offset the indirect costs incurred by the inefficiencies of the current designs.

Marol Naka – Line 1 and Line 3

This is the station that has caught the maximum attention of commuters and media for the inconvenient interchange between the elevated Line 1 (Blue Line) and the underground Line 3 (Aqua Line). The current setup is such that passengers coming from Andheri or Ghatkopar on Line 1 have to exit the station at the elevated concourse level, descend via stairs or escalators to the road level, walk a few meters, enter the Line 3 station’s entrance portal to descend more into the underground concourse via another set of escalators or stairs, go through security and ticketing, and descend one more level to the platforms to go to Cuffe Parade or Aarey on Line 3. The official argument here is that since one station is elevated and the other is underground, it was not possible to provide a direct connectivity between them from within fare controlled area.

However, looking at the locations of both stations and the entry portals for the underground station, even if one assumes there is not enough space to provide escalators and stairs, it is possible to connect the two stations via two sets of elevators, placed in a vertical tower constructed next to the underground station’s entrance portals, and connected from the elevated station via a short walkway, as shown in the image below.

This is not an ideal arrangement for a high-traffic interchange station as elevators can handle much lower passenger volumes than escalators and stairs, however this type of arrangement is not unheard of. At London’s Heathrow Airport station, a set of five high capacity elevators, each capable of carrying up to 50 passengers, are used to connect the ground level to the deep underground station serving the Elizabeth Line and Heathrow Express trains. A similar arrangement can move around 250 passengers per minute, and those choosing to not wait for the elevators can continue to use the existing setup of exiting and re-entering via street level. This arrangement should have been incorporated in the initial design plans for Line 3, as retrofitting this now will be a more expensive and disruptive affair.

Western Express Highway and Gundavali – Line 1 and Line 7

Mumbai Metro is peculiar in that interchange stations on two different lines are given two different names, making it more confusing for tourists and non-daily users to navigate their way. This is a topic for a separate discussion, while we focus here on the actual interchange experience between these two stations. Both stations are elevated and located perpendicular to each other, a few hundred meters apart. Currently, they are connected by an elevated walkway at the concourse level, so passengers connecting from Line 1 (Blue Line) to Line 7 (Red Line) have to exit the Line 1 station, walk through a long corridor, and re-enter at the Line 7 station, undergoing security check and ticketing again.

The improvement possibility here is relatively simpler than the previous example. The existing walkway is wide enough that it can be barricaded down the middle and split into two halves, and few of the turnstiles at both stations removed to divert connecting passengers into this controlled walkway so that they do not have to tap out and tap in at both ends, while the remaining space can be continued to be used for passengers who are actually entering or exiting either of the two stations and thus need to tap in and tap out for their journeys.

This type of arrangement is not unheard of, and there are examples of it in Delhi Metro at Hauz Khas between Yellow and Magenta Lines, and also at Sikanderpur between Yellow Line and Gurugram Rapid Metro Line. The same improvement can also be implemented between D N Nagar station of Line 1 and Andheri West station of Line 2 in Mumbai which have the same layout as above and suffer from the same inefficient design in its current form.

Dahisar East – Line 2 and Line 7

This interchange is a rather unique specimen where the design currently finalized is both more inefficient and more expensive to build than it should ideally have been. Unlike the other interchanges where the two stations are perpendicular to each other, here the two stations for Line 2 (Yellow Line) and Line 7 (Red Line) are parallel to each other and the tracks diverge away after the station. This type of layout is fairly common on the New York Subway and they have adopted the most elegant and simple station design involving two island platforms and four tracks as shown in the diagram below. At the 57 St station seen in it, the two inner tracks serve the Q line which goes straight while the two outer tracks serve the NRW lines which diverge to the right. Passengers wanting to transfer between the Q and NRW or vice versa have to just get off and walk over to the other side of the same platform to change trains in both directions. This is the most efficient transfer design possible between different metro lines.

Instead of adopting this design, at Dahisar East there are two completely separate stations built, one for Line 2 and the other for Line 7. As a result, passengers wanting to transfer between the two lines have to exit the first station, walk down one level to a connecting walkway, and re-enter the other station going through security check and ticketing again. Here, neither the argument of space constraint nor cost constraint holds ground, as this design occupies more space and costs more to build than building a single integrated station building with four tracks and two island platforms. One argument for this design is that the two stations were built at different times so they could not have been built as one integrated station, but the plans for both lines and stations were already known before either of them started construction, and they were built only three years apart by the same agency (MMRDA) so it is hard to believe that they did not have the option to build an integrated station.

The design of these stations cannot be changed now, but as some solace for the passengers, one can hope that when the second station opens, the walking connection between the two at the concourse level is kept inside the fare controlled area to avoid double ticketing and security checks.

Aarey-JVLR – Line 3 and Line 6

Similar to the Marol Naka design, the two Aarey JVLR stations are at different levels, with the existing station for Line 3 (Aqua Line) at ground level and the under-construction station for Line 6 (Pink Line) elevated. The two stations are located about 100 meters apart and MMRDA and MMRC are currently hinting that passengers will be expected to exit one station, walk at ground level, and re-enter the other station. However, the better option would be to provide a direct walkway between the two stations which is inside fare controlled area for interchange passengers. Unlike other stations, here land acquisition is not an issue as the land between the two stations is already owned by the Metro agencies and is currently vacant.

The existing Line 3 station is used by many commuters from Powai who drive their cars to the station and leave them there to head to the city by metro. None of the Mumbai Metro stations have proper car parking facilities due to paucity of land, but this station provides a perfect opportunity to integrate a large car parking facility in the vacant plot of land to encourage more car driving commuters to consider leaving their cars there safely and taking the metro for their daily commute, reducing traffic on already congested roads of Mumbai.

There is hope

Not all interchanges on Mumbai Metro are disconnected. There is at least one example where the different agencies have decided to co-operate. The underground BKC station on Line 3 (Aqua Line) and the elevated Income Tax Office station on Line 2 (Yellow Line) currently under construction are located close to each other, similar to the layout at Marol Naka. Here, there is a provision being made to connect the two stations inside fare controlled area by a set of escalators which will provide commuters the ability to change between Line 2 and Line 3 seamlessly without having to exit and re-enter.

There are four more interchange stations on the lines that are currently under construction and the final layout of them is not fully known yet. One can hope that all of them will provide seamless interchange as they are all elevated and the two lines are located fairly close by on all of them.

In Conclusion

Building a metro system in a large city is more than just civil engineering – it requires a thoughtful human-centric design that makes it frictionless and inclusive to all sections of the society. Thinking about how the various elements of a metro system such as its route alignment, location of stations, ease of access, and connections require that those responsible for designing and singing off on the execution are themselves invested in making it the best possible because they have a personal stake in seeing it succeed. Mayors of New York City and London, for example, are famously known for regularly using their metro systems, and its influence is seen in how these cities design and fund their metro systems. In cities such as Mumbai, on the other hand, you will rarely see the Mayor and leaders take the metro as their daily commute, except for the occasional photo-ops. When those in power start using the transit systems they sign the cheques for, maybe we will see a better designed metro for Mumbai.