You’re losing over 1500 hours a year. Here’s how to fix that.

People in Mumbai spend about a quarter of their life traveling. Most people use that travel time to people-watch or blankly gaze outside the window. Here’s a crazy thought! How about using up that time to do something productive?!

At an average, people spend 90 minutes a day commuting. Most people in India work every alternate Saturdays, so let’s say about 24 days a month. That’s traveling for 36 hours a month, and 432 hours a year!

And this is just the best case scenario. A majority of the people live and work at opposite poles of the city. Commuting for them may be between 3–6 hours a day. That’s over 1500 hours a year!

Now, imagine using up these 1500 hours a year to doing something productive. It could be virtually anything. You could read that book you always wanted to, work on some tasks to get a head start on your day, or even finish up that assignment you’re working on. Or maybe even find the cure to cancer…hey, you never know!

Now let’s look at the Mumbai Metro specifically, of all the options commuters have. The Mumbai Metro started in June 2014. It became an essential part of the average Mumbaikar’s daily commute to work rather quickly.

With an average ridership of 2.77 lacs, the Mumbai metro has got to be one of the noisiest places in Mumbai city. It is also considered to be the eighth most dense metro rail corridor in the world according to the MMOPL.

How exactly would we go about being productive, or innovative if the metro compartments are always buzzing with noise? Let’s take some inspiration from our US counterpart, Amtrak. They recently launched something called a Quiet Car. A Quiet Car is exactly what it sounds like, a car (or compartment in a train) that is quiet. Phone calls as well as conversation among passengers are discouraged. They also have ambient lighting that can be used for reading while traveling.

The ultimate cherry on the cake? There is no extra charge. Just like all the other compartments. All you have to do is get to the station on time and get yourself a seat. Just like all the other compartments. And no, reservations are not allowed. Just like all the other compartments. The only difference is that this car is quiet.

Even without the additions of fancy ambient lighting, we can still have one extra car / compartment at each end of the metro trains that are just quiet, it would still make a world of difference! The only issue would be in maintaining the state of quiet and separating it from the rest of the noisy compartments.

This simple change would enable more than 2 lacs people to achieve tasks, and feel productive. By the way, did you know that productivity has a direct correlation to confidence? But that’s a topic for another day.

At this point, I’m certain quiet cars would mostly be used by people to catch up some zzz’s, but hey to each his own.

I’d love to hear what you thought of this idea, do let me know in the comments section below. You can also check out my other posts here: www.medium.com/@nikitashah