Halt the train, catch a flight in Bengaluru

Driven by sustained citizens’ activism and a belated green signal from the railways, the much-delayed suburban rail halt station is finally ready for launch at the Kempegowda International Airport (KIA). But if this cheap and fast commute option can help thousands of airport workers, why not let passengers get the benefit too?

Despite its obvious benefits, the station and the railway link to the city have had to wait for years to see any action. The proposal was trapped in a complex web of bureaucratic red tape, official apathy and a system that prioritised the Metro and preferred the status quo of airport buses, personal cars and taxis to remain unaltered.

High-frequency trains

Indeed, the halt station is only part of a larger project that demands upgraded tracks and signaling that can take the load of high-frequency trains, additional infrastructure at stations on the route and more. To connect the halt station with the airport terminals, shuttle buses are also in the pipeline but have not been finalised yet.

An airport train can be a game-changer only if it can quickly and efficiently ferry airport workers, air passengers and residents in the airport’s vicinity, contend mobility experts. This would mean a wider network that lets the train pick up and drop passengers at multiple stations deep inside the city and its periphery.

Once the Halt Station gets commissioned, the South Western Railways have proposed to start train services from KSR Bengaluru City via Malleswaram, Yeshwanthpura, Yelahanka and the Halt Station to Devanahalli. However, this caters to airport-bound passengers from only one side of the city.

Separate service

To address this, a separate service between Cantonment and Devanahalli via Baiyappanahalli, Channasandra, Yelahanka and the Halt Station has been proposed by Citizens for Citizens (C4C) Convenor Rajkumar Dugar.

The two coordinated routes, he elaborates, can complement each other in providing good coverage to a large section of the city. Inter-modal connectivity can also be ensured by linkages with the Metro Stations at Yeshwanthpura and Baiyappanahalli.

On the city’s outskirts and beyond, the airport train could potentially change the connectivity dynamics dramatically. Currently, passengers pay a big amount to reach the airport from Tumakuru, Ramanagaram, Hosur and other localities. The existing tracks could be leveraged to introduce services from these towns besides Doddaballapura, Kunigal and Bangarpet.

In the immediate future, as Dugar notes, a 12-coach DEMU train with capacity reduced by half to 1,000 passengers would be adequate to meet social-distancing demands. When the airport train was first conceptualised almost 15 years ago, air-conditioned Shatabdi-like trains were proposed to ferry air passengers. But in Covid-19 times, this will have to wait.

Flyers and non-flyers included, the airport had recorded daily footfalls in the range of 1.3 lakh before the pandemic outbreak. Thanks to resumption of domestic flights and international arrivals and departures under the Vande Bharat Mission and ‘Air Bubble’ programme, footfalls have begun to climb again. The halt station and the airport train are expected to benefit from this upsurge.

Shuttle buses

But one critical connectivity issue will have to be sorted out before this happens. KIA’s operator, the Bangalore International Airport Limited (BIAL) had assured that it would introduce shuttle buses between the terminals and the halt station. However, the frequency of buses, the pricing and other issues are yet to be worked out.

It is also not clear whether the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation (BMTC) will be part of this service. BMTC officials have indicated that the service will depend on the train timings, and passengers will have to pay if the Corporation operates it.

The Halt Station is about 4.5 kms away from the terminal. Passengers may not mind paying a nominal fare, but they would want the shuttle service to be very efficient and well-coordinated. It is estimated that the commute time between the station and terminal will be about 10 minutes.