Home Blog Page 38

Indian Railways To Introduce MEMU Variant Of Train 18 To Slash Travel Time Between Major Cities By 40 Per Cent

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Indian Railways has unveiled an ambitious semi high-speed rail plan under which passengers would soon be able to travel between Mumbai-Pune and Mumbai-Nashik in just two hours, reports Times of India.

Currently, the fastest train between the two cities is the iconic Mumbai-Pune Deccan Queen Express which takes 3.15 hours to travel between Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in South Mumbai and the Pune junction. On an average it also takes almost similar time via road.

To reduce the travel time to just two hours, the Indian Railways is planning on running semi-High Speed trains like the Vande Bharat Express which is currently plying between New Delhi and Varanasi.

This train comprising of 16 coaches would be able to cruise at a top speed of 160 kmph. Unlike Train 18, the MEMU variant may not be fully air-conditioned.

A similar train would be introduced on the Mumbai-Nashik route cutting the travel time between the two cities to two hours. The Mumbai-Vadodara route too is expected to get the semi-high speed train which will reduce the travel time from 4.38 hours to 4 hours.

AN-32 Missing: Here’s What Ails The IAF Aircraft

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Transcript:

I think it would be fair to say that we have a problem in the Air Force – many of our aircraft are old and ageing and just not keeping with the times. Which is why India has been steadfast in going after Rafale. But now, just a couple of days ago, we saw a symptom of this problem yet again – an IAF AN-32 aircraft with 13 crew went missing, and search-and-rescue missions are reportedly underway.

If you recall from 2016, another AN-32 aircraft had gone missing – at that time over the Andaman islands in the Bay of Bengal when it was flying from Chennai to Port Blair. This time, the flight took off from Jorhat in Assam just a little after noon on 3 June and was headed to an advanced landing ground in Menchuka, Arunachal Pradesh, close to the border with China. About half an hour into the flight, the aircraft went off detection and was reported missing.

There have been reports of wreckage being found and the 13 crew members being martyred; however, we’ve not had an official word on the matter yet.

But as we wait to find out what happened with this particular flight – and the hope, of course, is that all onboard are safe – in this episode of Swarajya Standard, we look at what is a significant concern with this model of the Soviet-era IAF aircraft – the AN-32.

A naval pilot, K P Sanjeev Kumar, has written about it in his blog “kaypius”, providing an important perspective.

What he essentially says is that the AN-32 is not lacking in a robust engine or airframe but that it doesn’t have the safety aids necessary to tackle challenges like poor weather and rough terrain.

Flying over the hills, as this AN-32 was doing, brings up a number of challenges – from navigation to manoeuvring. For an aircraft to be able to safely fly over such difficult terrain, it needs to have safety aids over and above the ground-based aids generally on offer, those that can guide the crew in critical situations rather than have them rely on their judgement.

Kumar lists a bunch of safety features that are generally not available in Indian military aircraft, such as the ground proximity warning system, traffic and collision avoidance system, and terrain awareness and warning system. In fact, it came as quite a surprise to us to learn that Kumar had never seen or operated a terrain warning system in all the years of his service as a Navy pilot – from 1991 to 2014. This speaks to the gap in necessary tech upgrades that the IAF desperately needs.

Because, the fact is that for a lot of the challenges, experienced pilots can rely on their own judgement to see a flight through to safety. But sometimes the margin of error can be quite narrow, and a crew might do with some additional help from the in-flight system, especially in difficult terrain and during rough weather.

Plugging this gap is absolutely necessary – if we are to avoid these aircraft accidents and loss of life.

Because, the AN-32 – and we aren’t even talking about the aircraft in our ranks that’s known as the flying coffin – already has an unpleasant history of crashes, extending back to 2009, 1999, and all the way back to 1986, just two years after it was introduced into service as a transport aircraft. Since then, the AN-32 has already been involved in about 20 crashes, most of them not getting much attention.

But here’s the thing: there has always been a reluctance in India when it comes to modernising defence equipment. Although the wheels have started to turn, there needs to be a complete change in mindset – one that says ‘let’s get the technology necessary to keep the men in air’ rather than ‘we’ll do with what we have and pull off a rescue if things go south’.

Once that kind of proactive thinking sets in, we’ll be able to avoid repeat incidents involving Indian aircraft. The loss of life is just not worth it, and surely the men and women in the defence machinery know it. It’s just a matter of getting the mindset right.

For now, though, we hope and pray that the aircraft is found and the crew are alive – even if it’s wishful thinking.

2022 In Mind? How Yogi Adityanath Is Doubling Down On Infra Push In UP

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0
Snapshot
  • The BJP’s infrastructure push paid off great dividends for the party during the 2019 Lok Sabha election.Knowing this, Yogi Adityanath has decided to double down on the infrastructure projects in his state. Among other projects, he is betting big on expressways.

Kamlesh Kumar Dhuriya has been selling laiya chana outside Prayagraj’s Motilal Nehru National Institute of Technology (MNIT) for over a decade.

“Just a few years back, there used to be a traffic jam here everyday from 4 o’clock in the evening to 9 o’clock at night. If an ambulance got stuck here, there was no hope of it reaching the hospital in time. People died on the way. Since the day this road has been widened, there has not been any traffic jam here,” Dhuriya said, with Manoj Kumar, a temporary employee of MNIT, nodding in approval.

“Zameen-aasman ka antar hai (there’s a drastic change),” Kumar added.

Dhuriya’s and Kumar’s comments came as no surprise. As this correspondent crisscrossed Purvanchal — the eastern part of Uttar Pradesh — during the Lok Sabha elections, the state government’s road infrastructure push was clearly visible, and its effect palpable, as a large number of people echoed similar sentiments.

“Were roads ever this good? I don’t remember seeing a road better than this in my life,” said Gangesh Gond, who has a small transportation set-up in Phulpur’s Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative mandi. Gond was referring to State Highway 7 that links Prayagraj and Gorakhpur.

Nearly 250 km away, in Gorakhpur’s Campierganj, Phool Chand Nishad, who works in the construction sector in the Gulf, said, “The speed of development in this region has doubled. You can see new roads being constructed wherever you look.”

It was clear that this sentiment was translating into votes, as these men had told this correspondent in the first week of May that they were supporting the BJP. Of course, better roads may not have been the only reason why they were selecting the BJP over its rivals, but it was definitely one of the important ones.

Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath knows this and has decided to double down on his efforts.

In a meeting on 29 May, just five days after the election results, Adityanath brought forward the deadlines for the completion of four expressway projects in the state to make sure they are completed in time for him to add these as the achievements of the state government when the state goes to polls next in 2022.

Following up on 2 June, Chief Secretery Anup Chandra Pandey inspected the under-construction Purvanchal Expressway from air. Adityanath wants the 350 kilometer long expressway to be complete by August next year and work on two other projects — the Bundelkhand Expressway and the Gorakhpur Link Expressway — to start in three months. He has also ordered survey work for the ambitious Ganga Expressway linking Meerut and Prayagraj to begin in the next three months.

Purvanchal Expressway

Work on the Purvanchal Expressway began last year and, according to Chief Secretery Pandey, around 10 per cent of construction has been completed, along with over 40 per cent of the earth work, around 90 per cent of clearing and grubbing (removal of trees and stumps) work and about 96 per cent of the land needed for the project acquired. The remaining land will be acquired in the next 15 days.

The expressway is being built under the Engineering, Procurement and Construction model, which means that the contractor will be responsible for all the activities from design, procurement, commission, construction to the handover of the project to the end-user. Uttar Pradesh Expressway Industrial Development Authority (UPEIDA), the body responsible for the expressway, has divided the project into eight packages. Three firms — Gayatri Projects Limited, GR Infraprojects and PNC Infratech Limited — have already been awarded two packages each while Apco Infra Private Limited and Oriental Structural Engineering have been awarded one package each.

The project, introduced by the Samajwadi Party government, was initially delayed as the Adityanath government found that the bids received for the eight packages of the expressway were overpriced. These bids were cancelled in June 2018. New bids were invited and contracts swiftly awarded in June, and the government managed to save Rs 600 crore in the process. If the UPEIDA is to be believed, the original bids were overpriced as the bidding companies “joined hands and worked as a cartel”. Major infrastructure players such as Reliance and AFCONS failed to qualify for contracts in the second bidding while relatively smaller firms such as the Agra-based PNC Infratech and the Lucknow-based APCO Constructions made the cut.

The six-lane expressway will link the state capital Lucknow with Ghazipur, the easternmost district of UP, passing through Barabanki, Faizabad, Amethi, Sultanpur, Azamgarh and Mau. It will provide the backward districts along the eastern boundary of the state seamless connection to the National Capital Region via Lucknow, Agra and Noida through the Lucknow-Agra Expressway and the Yamuna Expressway.

The expressway will have an impact on six of the 15 Lok Sabha seats—Azamgarh, Lalganj, Ambedkarnagar, Ghosi, Mau and Ghazipur—where the BJP lost to the Samajwadi Party-Bahujan Samaj Party gathbandhan.

Gorakhpur Link Expressway

As the name of the project suggests, this expressway will link Gorakhpur with the Purvanchal Expressway in Azamgarh, passing through Sant Kabir Nagar and Ambedkar Nagar districts. Adityanath has issued orders to start work on the expressway within the next three months. The project is likely to cost the state government over Rs 5000 crore and will need around 1100 hectares of land.

Rs 1,000 crore had been allocated for the 90 km long expressway in the budget this year. Bids for this project are likely to be invited soon.

Bundelkhand Expressway

Just two years after it was proposed, around 79 per cent of the land acquisition for the Bundelkhand Expressway has been completed and, in line with Adityanath’s demand of starting work on the expressway in three months, authorities are set to invite bids this month to award contracts for the implementation of the project.

The 290-kilometer long expressway will link Chitrakoot with the Agra-Lucknow expressway in Etawah, passing through Banda, Hamirpur, Jalaun and Auraiya districts. It will connect Bundelkhand with NCR via the Agra-Lucknow and Yamuna expressways.

Bundelkhand expressway project is critical because the centre is planning to develop this region as a defence corridor. The state government has identified over 5,000 hectares of land for the defence corridor and sanctioned Rs 500 crore earlier this year for the consolidation of a land bank in the area from which allocations can be made to private sector firms willing to invest in defence manufacturing.

Apart from Kanpur and Lucknow, which have a number of private and state-owned defence firms, Chitrakoot, Jhansi, Agra and Aligarh have been identified as nodes for this corridor.

Construction is likely to start later this year as nearly 80 per cent of the land required for the expressway has been acquired. The state government wants the project to be completed by 2021.

Ganga Expressway

The Ganga Expressway is the state’s most ambitious road project. With the proposed alignment stretching over 1000 kilometers, it will be one of the longest expressways in the country, second only to the under-construction Delhi-Mumbai expressway.

The expressway will link the eastern boundary of the state with the western border. Under the first phase, the expressway will link Meerut with Prayagraj, passing through Jyotiba Phule Nagar, Sambhal, Badaun, Farrukhabad, Hardoi, Unnao, Rae Bareli and Pratapgarh. In the second phase, the western end of the expressway will be extended to the state’s boundary with Uttarakhand near Haridwar and the eastern end to Balia near the border with Bihar, passing through Varanasi and Ghazipur.

First proposed by the Mayawati government in 2007, the environment clearance granted to the project was canceled in 2009 by the Allahabad High Court as the alignment was proposed too close to the Ganga river’s channel. Construction close to the river channel would have damaged the flood plains of the river. In January this year, the Yogi Adityanath government revived the project, shifting the alignment of the expressway 10 kilometers away from the river channel.

The project is still in a preliminary stage and the government has issued orders to start survey for the expressway within the next three months.

Prakhar Gupta is a senior sub-editor at Swarajya. Follow him @prakharkgupta.

Road Ministry Sets Record Target Of Constructing 40 KM Highways Per Day To Build 12,000 KM Network In FY20

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Union Minister of Road Transport and Highways (MoRTH) Nitin Gadkari on Tuesday (4 June) said that the target for highway building in the current financial year (2019-20) will be 12,000 km, which is higher than the 10,800 km achieved in the 2018-19 financial year, reports Economic Times.

This, if achieved, will catapult the per day highway construction figure to 40 km per day. That would be significantly high compared to the highest per day highway building of 32 km per day achieved in the previous year.

It should be noted that the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) had promised in its manifesto for the just culminated Lok Sabha elections that if it came back to power, it will be building 60,000 km of national highways over the next five years.

The Union Minister Gadkari also briefed the mediapersons about the 1,300 km-long Delhi-Mumbai expressway project and said that it will lead to the economic development in the backward areas of Rajasthan, Haryana and Ghaziabad, through which the highway passes.

Gadkari apprised that he has encouraged the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) to allow oil marketing companies to set up fuel stations along the expressway.

Gadkari shared that there was a potential to establish around 2,000 petrol pumps along the expressway which could earn the the NHAI a rental income of Rs 40-50 crore, as the land along the expressway belongs to the NHAI.

Why The Idea Of ‘Free Ride For Women Commuters’ In Delhi Has Disaster Written All Over It

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Snapshot
Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal is planning to make metro and bus travel free for women in the national capital.

Here is why the idea is impractical and wrong at multiple levels.

Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal made news earlier this week by saying that the Delhi Metro and buses operated by the Delhi Transport Corporation (DTC) and cluster buses operated by the Delhi Integrated Multi-Modal Transit System (DIMTS) would be made free in a bid to increase women’s safety. While the underlying reason for this rather bizarre announcement – the union territory fared poorly in the recent elections and will elect its next assembly in eight months – is clear, there are many reasons why it is impractical.

For starters, while the DTC comes entirely under the transport department of the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (GNCTD), the cluster bus scheme (operating under the brand of Delhi Transit) is a public-private partnership between corporations and the DIMTS. The Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) that operates the metro is a joint venture between the GNCTD and the Centre with both having equal equity in the project. Further, the metro also enters the jurisdictions of the neighbouring states of Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Does the Kejriwal government have the jurisdiction to implement such a measure?

The simple answer to this question is a resounding ‘no’. Unlike other cities, where metro rail operations are handled by Centre-state agencies, Delhi is a unique case by virtue of being a union territory, specifically because it is the national capital.

If one were to take a trip down memory lane to late 2017, the DMRC had then proposed a long-pending fare hike for the system. While the fare revision was the second in the year, the agency had justified it due to the lack of fare revisions post 2009. Kejriwal had written to the Centre terming the fare increase as “unacceptable” and demanded for a rollback to which the Centre responded by asking his government to pay an annuity of Rs 3,000 crore to keep the system running. Despite the huge ridership, the Delhi Metro doesn’t generate enough profits (partly due to the delayed fare revisions) and had until March 2017 taken a loan of Rs 26,780 crore from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA).

While the GNCTD is free to do as it pleases with the buses since they come under its jurisdiction, both the DTC and DIMTS are posting heavy losses. In 2017, the cluster buses had a revenue deficit of Rs 260 crore, while a survey pegged the losses suffered by the DTC at Rs 1,750 crore, as recent as February 2019.

With these losses, the GNCTD is willing to add an additional financial burden on the network, but at the same time, it is not willing to foot its share of Rs 1,138 crore in the Rs 31,000 crore Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) connecting the capital with its satellite cities, a move that drew sharp criticism from the Supreme Court itself.

Understanding Populism

This proposal is yet another of Kejriwal’s populist promises after free water and power. However, one needs to look at the epitome of populism in India – Tamil Nadu. Bus fares in the southern state were not revised between 2002 and 2011, and when they were, it was a steep 90 per cent increase in fares. In this period, the quality of services suffered heavily due to the bad quality of buses. However, it is pertinent to note that Tamil Nadu’s populist economy is backed heavily by capitalism, and the state is the second largest in terms of gross state domestic product (GSDP).

While bus fares have been on the lower side, free travel was never a promise made per se. All students of government institutions are eligible for a free bus pass and those in private ones get a 50 per cent concession, but the pass is only valid for a trip between their residence and institute.

Further, while fares for ordinary buses are capped at Rs 22 for normal buses, they are more than twice that for express and deluxe buses while minimum fares in air-conditioned (AC) buses starts at Rs 25. In contrast, the maximum fare in an AC bus in Delhi is Rs 25.

While there has been criticism that the Delhi Metro’s fares are higher than that of the bus fares it replaces, one needs to understand the cost of investment for the metro and the very fact that it avoids the most obvious problems that buses faces – traffic. It is for this reason that the Chennai Metro’s fares are far higher than the suburban rail in the city.

All in all, given the Kejriwal government’s tendencies to propose something beyond their jurisdiction and then claim that the Centre isn’t letting it do its work, this too seems to be yet another opportunity.

As for free transit, it will put an additional strain on the already stressed network, mainly because people who earlier had no reason to take public transport will end up taking it for the sake of it.

Now, addressing the issue of women’s safety in public transit

The issue with women’s safety on public transport is not one to be taken lightly. Surveys in the past have shown that women do experience a significantly high level of harassment on public transport. How will free transport help in such a case, is anybody’s guess.

Many proposals have been implemented, including ramping up surveillance of public spaces, improved lighting and the provision of women-only services in the sector with both public and private participation. The DMRC on its part has introduced a slew of measures ranging from increased patrolling, one coach reserved for women to reserved seats in the remainder of the train.

There are other methods to improve the safety of women in public transport. A 2016 study in Bhopal by the WRI Ross Centre for Sustainable Cities made several recommendations that are in line with what the DMRC and Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) are doing, including deploying additional women personnel and making public transport safer by improving allied infrastructure such as well-lit pavements and bus stops. While the study did recommend a discount in travel passes to women, this was done to encourage women to move from informal modes of transport to proper regulated systems such as the municipal bus service. With the killer Blue Line buses having been phased out nearly a decade ago, this should not be a problem with Delhi, given that it is the second richest city in India.

An additional method of improving safety is by operating public transport, especially the metro throughout the night as well. When Transport for London launched nightly services on the London Underground (commonly known as the Tube) in 2016, it was speculated that there would be an increase in crime and anti-social behaviour. A year later, reports showed that crimes at night accounted for as low as 5 per cent of the total crime recorded on the Tube. Stations are fully staffed at night with additional security staff provided. Of course, for such a system to be viable, city administrations will also need to permit businesses to run throughout the night.

Women’s safety is indeed an issue, but it is not one that can be solved by such outlandish ideas, especially when the system incurs such a heavy expense. Even if the union territory administration pays up for this subsidy – which Kejriwal has said it will do – it leaves many other questions unanswered.

If the government was serious about paying heed to women’s safety in transportation, it would do well to pay for the RRTS, thereby allowing women from neighbouring cities to travel safely across the broader National Capital Region (NCR) rather than take the risk of getting into an unregulated mode of transport. After all, it took the GNCTD three years to approve the installation of closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras across the city after getting Cabinet approval.

Srikanth’s interests include public transit, urban management and transportation infrastructure.

UP Government Floats Global Tender Inviting Developers For International Greenfield Airport At Jewar

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The Noida International Airport Limited (NIAL) has floated a global tender inviting developers for the proposed international greenfield airport in Uttar Pradesh’s Jewar.

The airport, second in the national capital region after Delhi’s Indira Gandhi International airport and billed to be the biggest in the country when fully operational, will cost an estimated Rs 15,000 crore, said officials of the NIAL, an entity floated by the Uttar Pradesh government for implementing the mega project.

“The state cabinet had in a meeting in Lucknow on May 28 approved the bid document for development of the airport. Today, this bid is being opened by the NIAL and details are available on its website — www.nialjewar.com. The entire project would cost Rs 15,754 crore and the first phase would be completed in an area of over 1,300 hectare with two runways,” Chief Executive Officer, NIAL, Arun Vir Singh told reporters.

The bidding will be made on per passenger basis, will be completed in a single stage and the tender finalised on November 29 this year, he said.

“Development work is likely to commence early in 2020 and the first phase expected to be completed by 2023,” he said.

According to the NIAL, the first phase development of airport would cost Rs 4,086.54 crore.

The cost includes Rs 2,848.35 crore for compensation over acquisition of private land, Rs 894.53 crore for resettlement and rehabilitation of families displaced due to the projects, Rs 318.66 crore as additional compensation and cost of assets, and Rs 25 crore in administrative expenses, it said.

“The money for the first phase is available and made available in the district collector’s official account for expenditure,” Singh said.

He said the initial capacity of the airport is expected to be 12 million passengers and will go up to 70 million for the two runways and will go up to 200 million during later stages with construction of six runways.

“The state government has given a go ahead for conducting a study for developing the airport with six runways, the most in the country, by the completion of the entire project which will be spread in an area of 5,000 hectares,” he said.

About 1,333 hectare of land has been acquired from six villages for the first phase of the project, including 1,239.1416 hectare private land and 95 hectare government land, he said.

According to officials, the airport was first mulled in 2003 and finally got approved from the Centre and the state government in 2017.

According to the NIAL, Mathura,Agra, Aligarh, Palwal, Greater Noida, Noida, Meerut and Ghaziabad will be the primary Hinterland for the airport and impact adjoining areas in Rajasthan and Haryana also.

The airport is being built by the Uttar Pradesh government in public-private partnership (PPP) model and the NIAL is the implementing body for the project.

The NIAL stakeholders include the UP government 37.5 per cent, Noida Authority 37.5 per cent, Greater Noida Authority and YEIDA – both 12.5 per cent each.

The NIAL said the Indira Gandhi International Airport in Delhi is currently growing at a rate of 11 per cent which is expected to reach 150 million passengers per year by 2030.

With Inputs From PTI

Modi Government Plans For Greener Roads: 125 Crore Trees To Be Planted Along The National Highways

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Having spearheaded major infrastructure building projects in roads, highways, ports and inland waterways sectors in the first term of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government under Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, the Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari is all set to impart a major ‘green’ boost to the even bigger infrastructure building targets for his second term, reports Times of India.

The minister has determined to plant 125 crore trees along the national highways, equal to the total population of the nation. This initiative is likely to benefit the environment greatly.

Gadkari, while interacting with media at his residence on his return to the city after taking the charge of the ministry, was confident that all the ongoing highway projects will be completed by 2022. He stressed that work on most of the projects had already started and on others the work would begin soon and all of them will be completed within three years.

Further setting an ambitious target for bureaucrats, technocrats and specialists working under him, Gadkari said that he was able to increase the rate of highway construction to 32 km per day, and now he would increase it to 40 km per day for the next year and a half.

Gadkari also shared that the work on his pet project, the much-touted Delhi-Mumbai Expressway was moving ahead at a fast pace, with around 60 per cent of the contracts having already been awarded, while the rest would be done within a month itself.

Virgin Hyperloop One Likely To Start Building Phase 1 Of Mumbai-Pune Route By The End Of 2019

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

Virgin Hyperloop One is likely to commence Phase 1 work on its proposed Mumbai-Pune ultra-high speed hyperloop route in India before the end of 2019, Construction Week reported quoting the group’s managing director for the Middle East and India.

Harj Dhaliwal, the group’s managing director for the Middle East and India, told Construction Week that Virgin Hyperloop One is looking to start Phase 1 work on its proposed Mumbai-Pune ultra-high speed hyperloop route in India before the end of 2019. Upon the completion of the project, the travel time to cover the 140 km journey from Mumbai to Pune can potentially reduce from 3.5 hours to just 25 minutes.

Virigin Hyperloop One’s Indian route will link Navi Mumbai International Airport in Mumbai to the city of Pune, and is expected to benefit the combined population of 26 million of both the cities.

Phase 1 of the Mumbai-Pune project involves building a 11.8 km demonstration track with private investment of $500 million by 2023. It can adhere to the established timelines as there should not be any complications with the land acquisition process.

Phase 2 will see the rest of the stretch being built with the track bifurcating into two in Mumbai — one headed to BKC, and the other to Navi Mumbai to facilitate cargo movement. The hyperloop corridor will be built either under the Mumbai-Pune Expressway or run parallel to it.

Hyperloop is envisaged as a new mode of transportation that moves freight and people quickly, safely, on-demand and direct from origin to destination. Passengers or cargo are loaded into the hyperloop vehicle and accelerate gradually via electric propulsion through a low-pressure tube.

The vehicle floats above the track using magnetic levitation and glides at airline speeds for long distances due to ultra-low aerodynamic drag.

Hyperloop systems will be built on columns or tunnelled below ground to avoid dangerous grade crossings and wildlife. The advocates of the transport technology claim that it fully autonomous and enclosed, eliminates pilot error and weather hazards besides ensuring safety and cleanliness, with no direct carbon emissions.

An estimated 80 to 199 million passengers travel between the Mumbai and Pune annually. Virgin Hyperloop One plans to meet this demand by sending pods several times per minute, supporting up to 16,000 passengers per hour per direction at peak capacity,

“We signed the [memorandum of understanding] with Maharashtra state in November 2017,” said Harj Dhaliwal in conversation with Construction Week.

“We then did a pre-feasibility study to demonstrate the economic financial case to the state, federal authorities, and our investors,” he added, noting that the process concluded in February 2018 with the signing of a binding framework agreement.

“Phase 1 will be dedicated to building out the initial part of the project – so it’s not something that stands alone in a test facility, but part of the permanent alignment and route” Dhaliwal added.

“We will then do all of our demonstration to prove to the regulators that our system is reliable, safe, and certified for use by the public. Our timeline is that by the end of 2019 we want to commence construction on Phase 1, which is the ‘demonstrator phase’, as we call it”.

Virgin Hyperloop One is hoping to get certification work completed between end-2023 and early-2024, which would allow the firm to move into Phase 2, including construction work.

Virgin Hyperloop One’s rival firm Hyperloop Transportation Technologies (HTT) has proposed two routes in India including one linking new Andhra Pradesh capital Amaravati to Vijayawada but not much information is available on the progress of their proposal.

Noida Metro Line To Be Extended To Upcoming Jewar Airport By 2023; Proposal Sent For UP Government’s Approval

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The metro construction in the Delhi National Capital Region (NCR) is moving at a fast pace, as the new metro rail line, which would run from Greater Noida, would be going right up to the upcoming Jewar airport, Rail Analysis India reports.

The project has an estimated cost of Rs 7,000 crore, of which Rs 500 crore was allocated from the Yamuna Expressway Industrial Development Authority (YEIDA) from its annual budget during a recent board meeting. The project should be completed by 2023.

The proposal was approved by YEIDA in the board meeting and now would be sent for the reviewing and approval of the proposal to the state government. The metro project would be 32 km-long and will have dedicated tracks- a direct line to the upcoming Airport, and internal commuting between multiple sectors.

The metro rail corridor will start from the Knowledge Park II and end at the upcoming international airport in Jewar, which is also expected to be completed and inaugurated around 2023.

Chennai: Suburban Trains Lose 18 Lakh Commuters In April; Officials Believe Loss Due To Migration To Metro

By
Indian Infra Hub Staff
-
0

The suburban train network in Chennai has seen a drop of around 18 lakh commuters in the month of April, averaging to 60,000 commuters a day compared to the same month last year, the Times of India reports.

In April 2018, the number of commuters opting the suburban train network was 34.3 million and fell to 30.8 million in April 2019, southern railway statistics showed.

Railway officials said that the significant drop comes due to the migration of many users to the Chennai Metro rail, which sees daily patronage of 90,000 commuters or 30 lakh commuters a month.

The metro has seen a jump of 29 per cent, two months after the final leg of Phase-1 from Washermenpet to AG-DMS stretch of 10 km had opened. The new stretch is the shortest link between the Central Railway Station and the airport.

The metro trains take half time when compared to the suburban network. Further, the air-conditioned coaches and stations are more comfortable and hassle-free transport method, “This could be a possible reason for many commuter shift,” a senior railway official said.

Another reason for the reduction in the number could be attributed to the cancellation of services during weekends due to maintenance work. Railway officials believe the suburban train ridership could increase once again after educational institutions reopen in June.

1...373839...74Page 38 of 74

EDITOR PICKS

POPULAR POSTS

POPULAR CATEGORY

©