Last week, at the New India Urban Expo in Lucknow, officials from the Union Ministry of Housing & Urban Affairs announced that the country is aspiring to have metro rail network in 100 cities by 2047 to mark India’s 100th year of independence. This is surely some achievement given the fact that the first metro rail system in India started operating in Kolkata only in 1984. Today, the country has around 740 km of metro rail systems operating in 13 cities with Delhi Metro having more than 50% share of the overall metro network in the country.
Of all the urban transport systems in India, Metro Rail was probably the most impacted due to the coronavirus pandemic. Before the Covid crisis hit the country, these systems were catering close to nine million trips per day.
While the ridership has recovered since the first lockdown, these systems are still operating at a third of their capacity carrying around three to 3.5 million trips daily. Therefore, as Covid restrictions ease and the economy opens up, the ridership in these systems will surely increase.
However, it has not been smooth sailing for Metro rail projects in the country. Metro rail is an expensive project that costs more than ~ 250 crore per km and therefore, finding that kind money is always a struggle. Second, having a Metro does not mean its usage. For example, cities like Kochi, Jaipur, Nagpur are struggling to get to pre-Covid ridership. Metro rail projects which are running on Public Private Partnership (PPP) format have also struggled big time. Third, private sector involvement has not given the desired result. For instance, last month, the Supreme Court upheld a 2017 arbitral award and asked the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) to pay Reliance Infrastructure ₹ 2,800 crore plus interest in connection with the termination of a contract to run the Airport Express Line. A couple of months back, the court asked the Haryana government to pay closer to ₹ 2,000 crore to IL&FS as interim termination payment in the Gurgaon Metro project case.
Many cities have constructed or are in the process of constructing the Metro not because of technical reasons but due to political reasons. That’s because Metro has become a status symbol and cities want to have one, even if it means only a few kilometres. This needs to change because a Metro rail is an important part of the urban transport system. It is a system that can carry numerous passengers, something like 80,000 riders in each direction. But this also comes with an enormous cost. Data suggests that an elevated Metro costs around ~250 crore per km while an underground line can cost up to ~500 crore per km. And this is only the capital cost. Then the additional cost of operating and maintaining a Metro rail system. Therefore, logic dictates that Metro projects should be planned very carefully and judiciously. Also, if we take a closer look, many cities don’t even have a proper bus system. Therefore, assessing the need for a Metro system is the first step before thinking about its planning or construction.
Integrated planning
Once the need for a Metro system is established based on the techno-economic studies, the next step is to plan for integration. However, before starting with the planning process, we need to remember that transportation is a derived demand. The need for transport comes from land-uses and activities. Therefore, when a city decides to build a Metro, it is expected that the land-use and transport infrastructure that is developed around the Metro line will be able to support it. This, in technical terms, is described as Transit Oriented Development (TOD). However, a closer look at the cities suggests that the infrastructure developed around the Metro many times does not complement it; in fact, in many cases it is detrimental to the Metro project. For example, the second phase of Rapid Metro in Gurugram was built along the Golf Course Road. The idea behind this was to attract people travelling along this main road to use Metro for their commute. However, the city did the opposite. Expanding the Golf Course Road to 16 lanes further eliminated this possibility. In addition, the signal-free corridor doesn’t even have a decent walking infrastructure due to which walking along or crossing the road is nothing less than a nightmare. The result is that the Rapid Metro remains grossly underutilised. Similarly, in Delhi, the bus system is not integrated with Metro and again it becomes a nightmare for commuters to shift from one system to another. Therefore, land-use and transport integration along with integration of other services is key for its usage.
Feeder connection
Ask any user of the Metro about the main problem that they face using the system, and the most common issue is with accessing the Metro. That’s because most of the Metro companies concentrate on transporting passengers from one destination to another but how do they reach to that place is probably the least of their concern. This not only affects the ridership but in many cases also impacts the health and safety of the commuters. It has been seen that half-hearted attempts like the feeder buses in Delhi have not worked.
However, in many cities across the world, the Metro companies plan for the feeder network. For example, in Medellin, Colombia, the Metro company not only runs buses but also cable cars that connect low-income neighbourhoods, situated in the mountains, to the Metro network, resulting in an integrated transport service.
Multiple studies have suggested that in less than 5% of the total project cost, Metro systems can have high-quality feeder systems that provide complete end-to-end service to the passengers. This can only be made possible when the first and the last-mile connectivity is planned together with the main Metro journey.
It is important to understand that no single mode of transport can address all the mobility requirements of a city, including the Metro. London which has the oldest and the most extensive metro railway network of around 400 km, sees double the users on buses as compared to Metro. That’s because the city understands that high density corridors require Metro whereas low-density corridors can be served by buses. Therefore, it is important to develop a multi-modal transport plan which is focussed on an integrated transport system than Metro or buses.
The aspiration for 2047 should not be for 100 cities to have Metro system but 100 cities to have high quality, integrated public transport system because what commuters need is not just Metro or buses but a – seamless connectivity.
(The writer is Executive Director (Transport), WRI India)