Revising the draft policy on Suburban Rail Transport on Indian Railways

Given below is the suggestion I sent to Ministry of Railways for revising the draft policy guidelines for new Suburban Rail Systems on Indian Railways. 

Revising the policy on Suburban Rail Transport on Indian Railways: Additional option
An alternative that can benefit the Indian Railways, cities and the country

Railway ka to agey badhana hi hai lekin railway ke madyamse mujhe desh ko agey badana hai (Railway has not only to develop but through railways I have to develop the nation – translated by author) (Modi, 2014)¹

New draft policy for urban transport

Indian Railways (IR) circulated draft policy guidelines² for setting up new suburban rail systems. The policy lays down the conditions under which IR would participate in suburban rail projects changing the earlier IR stand of not being part of urban rail transport projects.

The proposed guidelines prescribe a stand alone suburban rail transport system with equity participation by state governments and IR. The system will be run by an Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) and it will take complete responsibility for the financial viability of the project including reimbursing IR if revenue is less than expenses.

Compared to the past stance of not participating in urban transport projects the policy guidelines give a definite outline of participation in urban transport. Thus it is a progressive step. However, the current draft prescribes uniform model across the country. Keeping the diverse Indian conditions and the way urban transport in cities have evolved it would be good to have alternative options. Some of these alternatives would be advantageous for IR and the city. One such alternative is presented below.

While the details are presented in the rest of the write up the policy summarised below:

• A well designed surface rail (conventional) system will have twice the capacity of a suburban metro rail system. Thus one can run urban trains along with long distance trains.
• The cost of constructing a metro system is around Rs 250 crores for an elevated metro system and Rs 500 crores for an underground system
• The cost of upgrading the most rudimentary single line system to double line automatic system would be around Rs 20-25 crores. The line capacity would improve from 6-8 trains per hour to 24 (12 trains in each direction assuming a 5 minute headway) trains per hour. Thus IR would have built in sufficient capacity to run both conventional and suburban trains.
• The proposed alternative would benefit both IR and the state governments.

Role of Indian Railways in Urban Transport: Perspectives from the past

Till 1986, under the Government of India business rules, Ministry of Railways was responsible for urban transport. During that period IR played a major role in suburban transport of Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkatta and in formation of Delhi ring rail. The Kolkatta metro was conceptualised and construction started by IR in this period. In addition it provided services in a number of cities though officially they were not designated as suburban services.

Even though the responsibility for Urban transport was assigned to Ministry of Urban Development in 1986, IR continued to hold baton in different forms - it not only continued the traditional role in the four metropolitan cities but expanded the services; it commissioned the Kolkatta Metro – first stand alone metro in the country; and it also expanded the services in a number of cities and towns though they were still not classified as suburban systems.

More importantly, in this period, it commissioned new large scale projects, albeit reluctantly, under different politically dispensations. These included the Chennai’s Mass Rapid Transit system (MRTS), Hyderabad’s Multimodal Transport System (MMTS) in and Kolkatta’s East-West metro corridor. In many cases projects pending for very long were commissioned when the political circumstances changed. As most of these changes were not conceptualised in a holistic manner they continued to be a big drag on the conventional services.

Mobility on IR: Cities as major bottlenecks

As per 2011 census, Indian Railway network has around 49 cities which have 1 million population and on a rail route they occur at an average distance of 250 - 350 kilometres³. This approximates to around 4-7 hours of run for mail express trains and around 8-12 hours run for goods train. It is well established fact that trains get detained for entry into and exit from these cities. Such a regular detention is one of the main reasons for lack of mobility on the IR system.

The reasons for the detentions at the cities can be classified into two broad categories. The first set of reasons arise from process inherent to concentrated populations in these areas. These are varied and inter alia include trespassing on the tracks, use of tracks for various human related activities and manipulation of railway equipment either intended or unintended. All these can be reduced but may not be possible to eliminate them outright.

The second set of reasons for detention pertain to rail capacity and terminal design. The sectional capacity is constrained in cities owing to the following factors:

• Merging of one or more lines leading to need for higher capacity on the shared sections.
• Simultaneously cross movement of trains between various sections reduce capacity.
• Constraints imposed by terminals and the related shunting movements impacting on the section capacity
• The need for trains to start and stop owing to capacity constraints further reducing the capacity

The next set of constraints arise owing to capacity problems at the terminals. The terminal activities are broadly classified as activities at the station and those pertaining to train formation and maintenance. Activities at the station relate to admission and dispatch of trains in a station and the dispersal of passengers from station and the circulating area. The activities at the station also include change of locos, parcel and luggage handling, catering and other activities. All these activities limit the number of trains that can be received in a station.

Second set of activities pertain to formation and maintenance of trains. This includes rake formation including attachment and detachment of coaches, stabling of rakes and rake maintenance. The stations and the terminals originally designed in an era and time where train operations were on a different footing are now morphed to handle much larger number of trains etc. In many cities mixed guage tracks were converted to broad guage. As a consequence the station design have become grotesque and sub optimal in resource utilisation.

To ease these constraints a very high investment would be required. Railways have been unable to provide large funds and thus detention in urban areas is a chronic problem.

Unlocking the potential of the urban rail systems

What is the true economic value of urban rail systems if we use them as purely urban transit systems. Currently metro systems in most cities are designed to run around 20⁴ trains of 6 coach length in an hour and thus have an hourly throughput of 120 Standard Gauge coaches. These coaches are 2.88 metres wide.

The conventional IR systems (referred to as surface rail systems) can be designed to run a 15 coach train every 5 minutes (though in some better designed systems a train is run every three minutes) giving a through put of 180 coaches. As the coaches are 3.66 metres wide against 2.88 metre metro coaches the equivalent throughput works out to 225 (180 *3.66/2.88) metro coaches – around 1.9 times of the metro system. In fact, being a surface rail system, the capacity can be expanded by running an 18 coach train with minimal investment and throughput increases to 270 (18*12*3.6/2.88) - 2.25 times that of a metro system.

Thus a surface rail system is flexible and can be easily upgraded to have a capacity twice that of metro system.

As per the latest estimates construction costs of an elevated and underground metro systems is around Rs 250 crores and Rs 500 crores respectively⁵. As the conventional system has twice the throughput economic of a conventional system is Rs 500 crores per kilometre if it replaces a elevated system and Rs 1000 crores if it replaces an underground system.

To realise the potential the investment required would depend on the existing track configuration. Maximum possible investment will be worked out by assuming a rail section with minimal capacity – a non electrified single line with absolute block system. To upgrade this system to an electrified double line with automatic block system the investment per kilometre will be around Rs 20 - 25 crores (see the details in the footnote⁶). In addition terminals may need a lumpy and large investment which could be around Rs 1000 crores per city.

Thus to develop a 50 km elevated metro system the costs required would be around Rs 12,500 (50 * 250) crores. For the same 50 kilometres, a typical surface rail would need around Rs 2250 crores (25*50 + 1000).

Thus it would be advantageous for IR, Ministry of Urban Development and State governments to take this collectively forward.

Operational and commercial arrangements

As train operations are integrated both mail line and suburban operations would be controlled by IR. However the number of trains and the approximate time slots on these trains would be worked out based on the initial project proposals and then reviewed at regular intervals, say once in two years.

The commercial arrangements would be same as the proposed arrangements in the draft policy guidelines. A special purpose vehicle (SPV) would be responsible for generating the revenue. The SPV will pay a cost for train operations and the cost will worked out as a part of the project proposal and revised at regular intervals. The steps to arrive at the cost would be worked out based as per the existing principles of cost allocation suitably modified to the new policy.

Benefits to IR and the need for immediate revision of guidelines

What are the advantages to IR? As seen earlier urban rail systems have been highly fund starved and as a consequence they have become major bottlenecks in the overall mobility on the IR. However, IR has not been investing on the systems as the funds of this magnitude are not available with IR. The value of urban rail assets if used properly would generate great value: a value of Rs 500 crores to 1000 crores for every kilometre of urban rail track with an incremental investment of 20-25 crores.

Hence, it would be prudent for IR to open the urban rail systems to urban transport and negotiating an equivalent value investment in return. It has to be understood that the value would be not be eternal; it would be reduced greatly if a parallel mass transport system is commissioned.As most cities are planning metro systems it would expedient for IR take up proposal as soon as possible.

Keeping this in view it would be in the interest of railways to open the urban rail systems for urban transport. More importantly, it could facilitate investments into urban terminals helping in their redesign to suit to the current operations. It would also reduce detention to trains and improve the mobility of the system.

As per the author’s estimates around 6628⁷ kilometres of rail track in urban areas can be used for urban transport. The system is worth Rs 16.6 (6628*250) lakh crores and this value can be realised with Rs 16,570 (6628*25) crores on improving section capacity around Rs 49,000 (@ Rs 1,000 crores for 49 cities) crores on terminal improvement. Part of the money so saved can be used for long term planning of the railway system in city area. These could be well connected and well designed state of the art terminals and railway stations, and bye pass railway systems – to run the goods trains and also cater to urban transport in the later stage.

Conclusion

Keeping the foregoing the alternative provided is beneficial to IR and the state governments. By actively opening the urban rail network for urban transport the cost of development reduces by 90 % - saving the state government large investment. It also shields IR form any loss from suburban operations similar to the lines envisaged in the current policy. It helps IR as it can remove bottlenecks improve mobility. Finally assets worth 16.6 lakh crores can be unlocked by investing around Rs 66,000 crores.

Finally, it is one of the simplest ways to fulfill the Prime Minister’s promise to the nation to not only develop railways but also use railways as a medium to develop the nation.

Footnotes

1 Statement by Prime Minister Sri Narendra Modi on December 25, 2014 during a speech at inauguration of Expansion of Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) in Varanasi (see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NyNGrPpCr68 at 8.15 minutes).

2 The guidelines are available at http://indianrailways.gov.in/railwayboard/uploads/directorate /Works_planning_Dte/OTHER%20METRO%20CIRCULERS/Policy_SuburbanRailSystem.pdf

3 This is an average and distance between cities actually depends on the route; with routes in North East, Western Rajasthan and Central India having fewer cities compared to denser areas like Kerala.

4 Though it is claimed that it is possible to run more than 20 trains per hour currently most systems are not operated to these standards

5 Based on cost estimates for Varanasi Metro Rail system. It is not much different for other systems.

6 Though costs are location specific the average costs (in Rs crores per kilometre) would be: Doubling: 10-12, Electrification: 3-4, Automatic signalling: 2-3, station (assuming stations at 1 km spacing): 3-4 and the miscellaneous: 2. The total would be Rs 20-25 crores.

7 See pages 12 and 13 of https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/43357/1/MPRA_paper_43357.pdf for a detailed estimate. 

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are author's personal views and do not reflect the views of the organisation he works for.