Prafull Singh, a DMRC employee, is a new Guinness World Record holder in the fastest time to travel through Delhi Metro stations. Singh traveled for 14 hours, 54 minutes and 36 seconds, proving stamina and knowledge of the huge metro network.
Since launching in 2002, Delhi Metro has become one of the most vital public transport systems in India. In a little over ten years, the network has grown very much, connecting Delhi to various parts of the National Capital Region. With thousands of daily services operating across multiple corridors, to move through the whole network in a single run takes planning, timing and a lot of physical and mental stamina.
Singh's record-breaking journey was conducted on 23 May. That his achievement was even more impressive was that he had already held the same Guinness World Record. But he did improve the record and finished the journey much faster than the previous record holders.
The previous record of 15 hours, 21 minutes and 4 seconds was established by Sujoy Kumar Mitra and Shipra Gupta in June 2023. Singh’s new timing is much better than the previous record and it is more than 26 minutes faster. His familiarity with the Delhi Metro system helped to design a route that minimised unnecessary delays and made sure that interchanges and trains in it worked efficiently.
Working with DMRC in the metro operations area also gave Singh an advantage. His professional experience informed him about train movements, operating schedules, station arrangements and network regulations. So he could handle the challenge as a logistical challenge rather than simply going from one station to another.
Singh said it was more than a personal achievement. He said working with DMRC helped him to show the reach and utility of the Delhi Metro and to convince people to use public transportation more frequently. His record also demonstrates the scale and connectivity of the metro network which allows commuters to travel around the larger metro network when they can and are not in private vehicles.
Guinness World Records has specific requirements for this category. Participants must visit the stations included in the relevant record attempt in the train and the train should stop at each station to count the visit. And competitors don’t necessarily have to leave the train at every station. But evidence of their presence at the stations should be well documented, whether it is photographs with digital timestamp or a clock visible.
Singh didn’t do this for the first time, as this was not the first time he tried to break the record. In 2022 he became the first person to navigate 254 Delhi metro stations in 16 hours, 2 minutes and 17 seconds. His experience from that time was such that he knew he could see where more time would have been saved from the original attempt to complete the record; he had found ways of saving more than one and a half hours lost time going wrong.
For his latest attempt, Singh began his journey at Raja Nahar Singh station on the Violet Line at around 6 am. He travelled over multiple parts of the Delhi Metro network before completing the journey at Millennium City Centre Gurugram around 9 pm. While covering such a vast network in one day, he had to keep the schedule and work on the interchanges and operational timings.
Singh’s metro experience is just the tip of the iceberg; he takes on a lot of hard challenges and does not make it easier. He is an Ironman triathlete with swimming, marathon running, and cycling. A champion of long-distance sports, his stamina and discipline are likely to have been cultivated by training and so he is probably able to withstand long-term challenges.
Singh’s accomplishments go beyond the Guinness World Record. In 2021 he was recognized in the India Book of Records for cycling 3,000 kilometres indoors in 134 hours at his home. And his new metro record adds to that list another unusual endurance record.
Singh has set himself a more ambitious challenge for the coming years. He will swim from India to Sri Lanka to help bring cancer research from India to Sri Lanka. The challenge would require extreme dedication, stamina and open water swimming skills for him.
Prafull Singh’s Guinness World Record is a great example of how a system’s planning, persistence and knowledge can turn an enormous logistical problem into a record. It also puts the scale of the Delhi Metro network on display in order for people to see at all when using public transport to reach millions of people in the whole National Capital Region.
