Bullet Trains

The time for high speed railways has come

bullet-train-image (File photo) Representational image

The demand for means of transportation in India does not seem to abate. The fact is that the country does not have enough capacity (or supply) to fulfill the actual demand. What we see as supply for transportation is finite and is usually filled up on a first come first served basis irrespective of mode of transport and across all sectors.

subodh-jain Subodh Jain

Due to the regional disparities in earning levels, there are higher number of travellers in luxurious modes of transport in the southern and western India as compared to eastern and northern parts.

Demand for a particular mode or class of travel is directly proportional to population and inversely proportional to distance and average income of citizens, apart from other minor factors.

Available transport data of passenger travel via various modes, though an indicator of the economic activity, does not truly reflect the real demand because all modes are constrained. If a person is going by air, that does not necessarily mean that he/she is air traveler. There is a possibility that he/she tried but could not get the train ticket and inverse could also be true. Travel demand growth is highly dependent on growth of GDP.

Why high speed railways

If high speed railways (HSR) are a no-no, then what are the alternatives?

Budget airlines have issues related to airports at smaller towns besides non-availability of slots for landing/take-off and parking at metros.

The existing railway infrastructure is already bursting at its seams and requires heavy investment to decongest. Expressways have already been tried and found to be unsustainable beyond a point. Now, it is time to give new transportation solutions such as bullet trains (high speed railways) a shot as expanding existing modes of transport will only be incremental in nature whereas introduction of a new mode has the potential to unlock supply (capacity) exponentially. It is a different matter that incremental approach to existing available mode of transport will be cheaper alternative but may not necessarily be sustainable.

Number crunching

Any transport network is good only if it is extensive (covers the entire geography) and intensive (services are available at the required frequency). HSR, if developed as a network across all parts of country, caters to both these because trains can be run at a gap of less than 10 minutes. At occupancy levels of 75 per cent, HSR will be able to ferry 4,000 passengers every hour in one direction. If we charge Rs 5 per km at current price levels, HSR should be able to break even at 30,000 passengers per day per direction, not taking into account the cost of servicing the capital employed.

The loan has to be repaid over 50 years at an interest rate of 0.1 per cent with repayments starting after a 15-year moratorium.

Naysayers may argue that the project should have been given to the entity after a competitive bidding but the fact that getting such easy terms for the project from anyone else in the world is next to impossible as competitive bidding is possible only if funding is delinked.

In a way, we are not paying for the fixed infrastructure at all. Only operations and maintenance cost may go up a little as the project is tied to one player.

Alternatively, incremental investment in Indian Railways (IR) does not seem to be viable option as IR has gone into a rut, making 45 per cent losses in its passenger business with the freight business cross subsidising it. Therefore, the more IR expands its passenger business, the more it would lose money on operation and maintenance alone, without considering the cost of servicing. However, huge operating losses on the Ahmedabad-Mumbai bullet train are unlikely as in the distance range of 500 to 700km HSR is attractive mode of commuters having value of time.

Global experience

China has the largest high speed rail network in the world. In rupee terms, it charges about Rs 5 per kilometer while Japan charges Rs 10 per km. However, Japan’s west coast is densely populated with real estate prohibitively costly in large cities. Thus, occupancy levels are very high in Japan. China and France see excellent occupancy on their main route—Beijing-Shanghai and Paris-Lyon respectively—but traffic on other sections is lower.

France follows a hub and spoke model with Paris as the hub. Generally, the government provides two-thirds of the capital cost for HSR with the operator bringing in the rest. Rail operators in Europe, operating via international routes, operate by paying the track access charges to the network owner.

What should India do?

I feel we would not be able to garner numbers across all corridors. Hence, a hub and spoke model with Nagpur as the hub or interchange point could be an option. So, one may have Nagpur-Delhi, Nagpur- Kolkata, Nagpur-Mumbai, Nagpur-Chennai, Nagpur-Bengaluru via Hyderabad and Nagpur-Ahmedabad.

All these sectors can be done in about of seven to ten hours with one interchange. This would provide adequate numbers on each leg and will be able to cover more geography/more population with lesser route kilometers. Though the travel time may be higher than a direct connection, viability would improve.

People for whom time is money are the target passengers for HSR. For instance, a person who buys a ticket on the Ahmedabad Mumbai HSR for say Rs 3,000 has a money value of time over Rs 500 per hour as he saves 6 hours. People with lesser money value of time would prefer to travel by Shatabdi and work on their laptop while travelling. Hence, patronage will be heavy only during peak hours and during non-peak hours occupancy may drop much to the detriment of the HSR’s viability.

The social cost for HSR will be better than airlines and expressways as it uses electricity, reducs carbon emissions, provides better first mile and last mile connectivity and generates employment. HSR is a preferred mode of transport over budget airlines for distances of up to 700km the world over.

Finally, a word on safety—high speed railways are generally accident-free despite several decades of existence because the greater discipline both at an organisational level and as for commuters, there is no trespassing, no speed differential and no mixed traffic. Trains are run only if the infrastructure is fully fit to do so and it should be no different in India.

The writer is a Member-Engineering (Retired) of the Railway Board

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