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)
New
draft policy for urban transport
Indian
Railways (IR) circulated draft policy guidelines
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 kilometres.
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 20
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
respectively.
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 footnote).
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 6628
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
