{"id":90517,"date":"2019-06-18T16:53:13","date_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:53:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/?p=90517"},"modified":"2019-06-18T16:53:13","modified_gmt":"2019-06-18T23:53:13","slug":"fifty-three-railway-stations-to-be-facilitated-with-wi-fi-zones","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/2019\/06\/18\/fifty-three-railway-stations-to-be-facilitated-with-wi-fi-zones\/","title":{"rendered":"Fifty-three railway stations to be facilitated with Wi-Fi zones"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera <\/em><\/span><\/h2>\n\n\n

Leading Sri\nLankan internet service providers have planned to establish 89 Wi-Fi zones at\n53 railway stations across the country, the Policy Development Office of the\nPrime Minister\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One company\nwill facilitate 55 percent of the total number of Wi-Fi zones. Accordingly, 49\nWi-Fi zones will be established by this company while other internet service\nproviders are set to facilitate the rest of the 40 Wi-Fi zones.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forty-four of\nthese Wi-Fi zones will be located within the Western Province and 22 of them\nwill centralize 14 railway stations in the Colombo district.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\nSabaragamuwa Province, Rambukkana Railway Station is to be facilitated by this\nproject. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile, 3\nrailway stations in Kandy district, 5 in North-western Province and 5 railway\nstations from Badulla district are also to be facilitated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The regulatory\nand follow-up activities regarding this project are maintained by the Policy\nDevelopment Office.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have train\nstations built by British where most of them were never modified or improvised\nfor the last 70 years <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have a\nhorrible  train service which is running overcrowded <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Railway lines\nare not modified to take high speed trains When you travel in an Intercity or\nan express train you feel how shaky the compartments are. We are talking about\nefficient train service and monorails for the last many years  as s\nsolution to traffic snarls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are at the\nmercy of private bus drivers who behave like devils <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We need to\nprivatize railway station management and let private sector invest and develop\nthe facilities <\/p>\n\n\n\n

They can\nattract passengers to use more friendlier train service <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was\ntraveling from Brighton to London that they and observed how efficient the\ntrain service is and how well stations are managed<\/p>\n\n\n\n

If the trains\nrun on time and you do not  waste your time siting in the  station\nwaiting for a train , why the hell you need WIFI??<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This country\nneeds to ponder into more more burning issues than<\/p>\n\n\n\n

WIFI<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After all Train Service is the main blood vein of the development of the country\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quote from\ntrip advisor<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sri Lanka Train Overcrowding<\/h1>\n\n\n\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dan L<\/strong><\/a> \u00b7<\/strong> 1 forum post<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Washington DC, District of…<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dec 27, 2018, 9:54 AM<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Not a\nquestion, but advice: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

During\nhigh season travels, I need to advise that tourists should not plan on taking\nthe Sri Lankan trains due to overcrowding. As is commonly known, there is no\nlimit to the number of tickets sold per train. I attempted to travel Colombo<\/a> – Galle<\/a> on\n12\/22\/18, and several people were unable to board the train. (I think at least\n50 people, but I didn\u2019t take an exact count.) The train was late arriving Colombo Fort<\/a> due\nto the overcrowding at the origin station, and even further delayed because of\nthe crowding at Colombo Fort. Four of us ended up splitting an Uber from\nColombo Fort to Galle, at a cost of 8200 LKR.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Today\n(12\/27) I took the train from Ella<\/a> to Haputale<\/a> for\na day trip. While I was able to board the train, the train was *packed*. it was\nelbow to elbow and overcrowded. My original plan was to take the train from\nElla to Kandy<\/a> tomorrow,\nbut there is no way i\u2019m traveling 6+ hours standing in those conditions… with\nall of my belongings. As for missing out on what is possibly the most scenic\nview in the world, as I am 185 cm in height, I cannot see out the window in a\ncrowded train. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anyway,\nthe point of this post is to caution tourists traveling during high season that\nthe train may no longer be the go-to form of transport that it once was.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

ReplyO<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sarath\nobeysekera <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Dr Sarath Obeysekera Leading Sri Lankan internet service providers have planned to establish 89 Wi-Fi zones at 53 railway stations across the country, the Policy Development Office of the Prime Minister\u2019s Office said. One company will facilitate 55 percent of the total number of Wi-Fi zones. Accordingly, 49 Wi-Fi zones will be established by this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dr-sarath-obeysekera"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90517\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lankaweb.com\/news\/items\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}