An Integrated Rail Transportation System
Without going into details, I would like to outline some advantages of the IRTS. The obvious hurdles will also be dealt with simultaneously.
Costs
The most obvious point is that it is massively expensive to build a rail system. Even conservatively it will cost $50 billion. Here is the way out. Let it be private/public partnership. The government owns the land on which the existing rail system operates. So that could be the contribution of the public sector. The rails can be farmed out to the private sector on a “build and operate” scheme. And the rolling stock can be owned by private sector firms. These private sector firms can operate trains just as they operate airlines today. They can import the best available train technology from Japan and France just as airlines import planes from Airbus and Boeing.
The involvement of the private sector will not only free up public resources, but the increased efficiencies will propel economic growth which will increase government tax revenues.
The world is awash with liquidity these days. India needs to come up with projects which will attract these savings. Building a modern railways for India is one such project.
Employment
The IRTS will have to be built from scratch. Doing so will involve the labor of millions. Just like the interstate highway system did for the US, it will give a permanent boost the growth of the economy. Spending $50 billion will generate direct employment.
Economic Linkages
Then there are secondary effects which arise from backward and forward linkages. Forward linkages such as the development of a more efficient agricultural and manufacturing sector.
A significant portion of agriculture production is wasted as it cannot be moved efficiently enough. Manufacturing for domestic consumption and for exports is stunted because of the slow movement of goods. Both sectors will obtain efficiency gains.
Technology
India does not have state of the art railroad technology which has been developed by countries such as France and Japan. To begin with, India will have to import these and build up domestic manufacturing capacity. Since the requirements for India will be large, India has the bargaining power to seek technology transfer. Then given Indian that engineering and design talent is not lacking in India, it is possible that India can improve on the technology and be a leader in the field.
Vision
What we have in India is a creaky dilapidated outmoded transportation system. More than roads and airports, India needs a great rail transportation system which will form the bedrock upon which a modern Indian economy can move. It is a great challenge and if articulated well, it can galvanize the entire population. It will not be easy but then easy things are not worth doing and are rarely transformational in their impact. The movers and shakers of India should look for projects that transform, hard though they may be.
The beauty and elegance of a modern transportation system beckons. Are we up to the task?
{Related links: See these pictures of Shinkansen (the Bullet Trains of Japan). Wouldn’t it be amazing to have trains like these in India? Reuben at Zoostation had a bit about the new Shinkansens.}
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i am not sure about an integrated rail system being the best panacea - for starters air , bus and rail transport are not mutually exclusive. In fact other than the US virtually all other developed economies have the three in tandem with buses competing healthily with rail. I strongly disagree that air transport is only for the rich in India – there is a growing middle class that will increasingly prefer that to rail no matter how much the latter modernizes. Also, what happens to the state within a state otherwise known as Indian Railways? If that can be privatized we may have a starting point. BTW, the US railroad system was initially all private with government providing the land via eminent domain and sometimes dodgy acquisitions
Comment by Vijay Dandapani — July 18, 2005 @ 2:21 pm
The Indian Economy Blog
Seven notable Indian bloggers/journalists have recently started a blog, The Indian Economy. DesiPundit wishes them luck and will keep an eye out for some excellent writing.
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Trackback by DesiPundit — July 21, 2005 @ 9:08 pm
Hi Atanu
This is interesting. The next generation rail service in India is probably overdue, but I’m sure a French style TGV would be cost effective for a nation like India. These high speed trains are enormously expensive, not any less expensive than airplane. My parents took the TGV in France and they said the tickets cost as much as a flight would. You also have to keep in mind that higher speed will really up the requirement for safety: a derailment at that speed kills all passengers. Do you really want a government owned and operated service operating at those speeds?
Going private is another option. It isn’t quite so easy because rail service fits the model of a natural monopoly, and people will insist that either the government run it or strictly regulate it.
One more general comment about this website: doesn’t look too much like this one?
Comment by Michael H. — July 22, 2005 @ 8:03 pm
Brilliant exposition…I agree with it….On a similar note, we have hazaar red-tape, we have infinite lack of infrastructure (inventive use of adjectives!!!), and just zero intent to do it.
I live in Mumbai, and have heard for ages that the transport infrastructure is creaking….what do we do…nothing….I take 40 minutes to drive 7 kms which it takes to reach office.
so much for our journey from mumbai to shangai….(that should take light years at the above speed ;-)))
Comment by Amitabh Iyer — August 17, 2005 @ 2:21 am
Excellent Work… … Only problem is that we need you in Planning Commission….
You have correctly stated that for the country to prosper you need both hard economy as well as soft(ware) economy….. A refreshing thought compared to the facts that 99 % of the electronic media (catering to 0.5 % or Indian population - the elite) see Stock Market alone as the index of Indian Growth
Comment by Bruno — October 19, 2005 @ 2:19 pm
Introduction
What makes Indian traffic unique is that a small group is quickly filling up road space while everyone suffers from congestion. The 20/80 rule shows how great benefits are possible by presenting SkyTran as a public transport alternative.
20-80 Rule Applied to Urban Transport
Author: Ankur Bhatnagar ©2006
20-80 rule is one of the most common tools used by business consultants and analysts. It is a general principle and it means that often a large part (“80%”) of most effects or phenomenon is attributable to a very small set of reasons or factors (“20%”). It is useful because it implies that a large part of a problem can be solved by just controlling a small number of factors, or a major part of an opportunity can be quickly realised by focusing on a small set of controls.
The numbers 20 and 80 are not to be taken literally, they just mean very small and very large respectively.
As examples, we may often find that 80% cost of inventory for an enterprise may be due to only 20% of items; 80% of sales comes only from 20% customers; world’s 80% crude oil is produced by only 20% oil fields; 80% wealth is in the hands of only 20% population, and so on
In this article, we see how this 20-80 rule is applicable to urban traffic, and whether this rule brings out new lessons to be learnt.
It is well known that in India only a small fraction of people owns cars. If you peep out of your window and look at the street, you will find a very large number of cars filling up the roads, parking lots, driveways, walkways, residential areas, and almost all open space accessible to the wheels of the cars. Only a small fraction of space is actually used by buses or mini-buses that are used by poor for transport.
Stating it in the format of the 20-80 rule, it turns out that only 20% of population (car users) end up causing 80% congestion! Most planners continue targeting the 80% population, which contributes to only 20% of congestion.
Search for more space on public land, reservation of space for mass transport (e.g., BRT and Metro Rail), reduction of space for cars, and high costs/low ticket pricing resulting in subsidy burden. When people don’t switch from cars to mass transport, there are demands to increase the taxes on cars and fuel. And, by the way, the switch from cars to mass transport is still marginal
Poor people were already travelling in buses. The improvement for them is only marginal. If you target solving only 20% part of the problem, in the best case, that’s what you will get. While poor have more buses, their travel speed and travel experience remains pathetic, as buses and trains simply don’t increase speed. They have rigid routes, must stop at all stations and require a lot of walking, waiting, standing, halting, and in the process, killing speed and convenience.
The car users make shriller noises as they are made to pay still higher taxes and the road space decreases for them, or at least it doesn’t increase as much.
Then there is a strong and valid suggestion that the cost of cars should in fact be lowered so that more people can travel faster and in comfort.
The debate within the transport expert community ends up being chaotic, contradictory and confusing.
The 20-80 rule tells us to look at the situation differently. It says that since 80% of the problem (congestion) is only because of 20% of users, create solutions for those 20% users rather than for 80% users who are already managed.
Let us review the attributes of such a solution:
1. Can it be a lightweight and cheaper solution,
to cater to far smaller number of users.
2. It doesn’t have to carry the bulk of traffic, although if it can, it would be an additional advantage.
3. The two segments - the car users and mass users are two separate segments with separate needs. The former are willing to pay much higher in return of a much better service than the latter.
4. The performance attributes of the solution must match and exceed that of cars. That means we must acknowledge the superior travel experience of a car over mass transit modes, which many planners fail to do.
5. While providing a service superior to that of cars and therefore much better than mass transport, if it provides sufficient capacity in low cost it could result in a transport revolution for the city.
6. This solution must be different from cars, i.e., it must not have the disadvantages associated with cars. It must not add its own congestion, must not pollute, consume lower energy and occupy minimal space.
Not only the cost of this solution will be lower, these targeted 20% users (car users) are also those who have the paying power as they belong to the higher economic segment. That means this solution doesn’t have to be subsidised.
The conventional approach tries to remove only 20% congestion by deploying hugely costly transit systems for the masses. If the ticket price is increased by even a rupee or two, the masses start shifting back to older modes nullifying the new initiatives. Not to mention the vociferous protests. The only alternative then is to keep the ticket prices artificially low and look for other revenue alternatives and still suffer losses.
The obvious question is what is that solution that targets 20% upper end users and has the attributes listed above. Since this solution has to be better than the car transport, let us first see in what ways are cars better than mass transport mode. Note that we are comparing the performance criteria from the point of view of users, not planners. While planners have a long list why car is a worse transport mode than mass transit, the users have an equally long list on why they prefer cars to mass transit.
Cars have clear advantages over mass transit in the following terms:
1. Comfortable seated travel
2. No waiting for the vehicle – always available
3. No inter-modal or same mode interchange hassles
4. Cars are faster since they don’t to stop at intermediate points except intersections and congestion bottlenecks
5. No jostling with crowds
6. Minimal exposure to dust and grime
The user reaches his destination in lesser time and in a better shape more ready and productive to attend to his purpose at the destination in a car. The mass transit systems just cannot provide these benefits. Experts often undervalue them. For example, they feel that by providing air conditioning in buses or trains the travel will become convenient, even when they take away seats to make room for more people!
A solution targeting the car user must at least match the above benefits. If this solution can achieve this, provide even better performance at low enough cost, and in capacity more than that required by top 20% population, it would be nothing short of a revolution as masses too will be able to take advantage of it.
Among the existing alternatives there is none that can fulfil the above described need. Therefore, new ways will have to be considered. Personal Rapid Transit technology, especially SkyTran technology by UniModal is one such solution.
SkyTran takes the travel experience to the next level. It matches and exceeds the performance criteria of a car not only from the end users’ perspective, but also doesn’t have any of the disadvantages associated with cars such as congestion, pollution, space gobbling, high accident rate. It is way cheaper than cars, and cheaper than even mass transit systems while providing capacities unmatchable by mass transit systems. It beats speed advantage of cars by orders of magnitude even if SkyTran runs at half of its rated speed of 160 km/hr. As a result, SkyTran will not only be successful in attracting car users, its advantages will flow to all sections of users.
Also note that though at the moment decongesting is the main objective of planners, SkyTran allows them to go beyond that. In the absence of congestion people will be able to travel up to a speed benchmarked by inherent upper speed limits on city roads. However, SkyTran will allow them to travel much faster than that with much greater safety thus achieving objectives much beyond traffic decongestion.
Comment by stanley — May 11, 2006 @ 2:55 pm
Atanu Dey is absolutely right about the IRTS. Those who have commented about the efficiency of Air travel do not know what they are talking about. First of all air travel depends entirely on imported fossil fuel. The so called low cost airlines are not viable in the long term. Coming back to the railways. Technology is now available that can run faster trains on existing tracks of India. The Pendolino tilting trains can run at 250 km/hr on the existing tracks. Even with an avaerage speed of 200 km/hr these trains can cover the distance between Delhi and Mumbai in 6-8 hours and the average travelling public would prefer this mode to expensive air anyday. Besides trains can be powered by fuels available locally.
Comment by David — August 16, 2006 @ 2:41 pm