The 19.15-km line, which connects RV Road with Bommasandra, hasn't opened due to a shortage of trains.
Credit: DH PHOTO
Bengaluru: Namma Metro's Yellow Line has run into further delays and will now open in late July or even August, according to sources with direct knowledge of the matter.
Deputy Chief Minister D K Shivakumar had set a May 2025 deadline for the Yellow Line.
The 19.15-km line, which connects RV Road with Bommasandra, hasn't opened due to a shortage of trains.
In late April, the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) submitted documents to the Commissioner of Metro Railway Safety (Southern Circle) to initiate the statutory safety inspection.
However, a critical document — the Independent Safety Assessment (ISA) certification for the train signalling tests — is still pending due to glitches in the test datasets, a senior BMRCL official said.
The BMRCL conducted all statutory tests on the new rolling stock, including multi-train tests.
Siemens India Ltd-Siemens AG, the Yellow Line's signalling contractor, detected glitches during a review of the datasets. Fixing them requires software corrections.
"Train movements are entirely controlled by this software. Any glitch has to be corrected in the software, tested in the field and verified," the official told DH, requesting anonymity.
The software controls all aspects of train operations: acceleration, braking, speed, routing, distance between two trains and so on.
The official explained that metro systems follow Safety Integrity Level 4, the highest measurement of the performance of safety-related systems. If any component fails or there's a software glitch, the system defaults to safe mode.
"It's taking longer than anticipated. Unless all tests are assessed for safety, Siemens cannot approach the independent assessor," the official said. "We're trying to expedite things, but it's not in our hands."
According to the official, Siemens has assured that the ISA certification will be ready by June-end. Only then can the BMRCL formally request the CMRS for safety inspection.
Based on this timeline, the CMRS inspection will likely happen in July.
On a positive note, the BMRCL has completed all static tests on the third train, which arrived in Bengaluru on May 14. Mainline testing on the train will begin in the next few days, the official said.
Titagarh Rail Systems Limited (TRSL), which is supplying trains for the Yellow Line, is expected to deliver the fourth train by July-end.
"TRSL is now making carbody shells in-house under the supervision of engineers from the CRRC, the main contractor. Production has been streamlined, and we expect TRSL to start delivering one train per month after July," the official said.
The first train, as well as the carbody shells for the second and third trains, were all imported from China.